Sabina Spielrein: From Being a Psychiatric Patient to Becoming an Analyst Herself

In this paper, I evaluate Sabina Spielrein’s life and ideas from a contemporary understanding. I do this by considering the context and situation in which she lived: a journey from being a hospitalized psychiatric patient to becoming a psychoanalyst herself. From her crucial life experiences she learned that the main psychic conflicts stem from the struggle between life and death, and not from opposing ego drives and sexual desires. Spielrein’s considerable creative potentials were nurtured, as well as blocked by her inner conflicts, but also by the enormous historical conflicts of her time.