Sabina Spielrein

Sabina Nikolayevna Spielrein (Russian: Сабина Николаевна Шпильрейн, IPA: [sɐˈbʲinə nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvnə ʂpʲɪlʲˈrɛjn]; 7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1885 – 11 August 1942) was a Russian physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts.

She was first the patient of Carl Gustav Jung, then the student of Jung, then eventually the colleague of Carl Gustav Jung. She also had an intimate relationship with Jung during 1908–1910, as is documented in their correspondence from the time and her diaries. Spielrein also met, corresponded with, and had a collegial relationship with Sigmund Freud. Spielrein also worked with and psychoanalysed Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget.

Spielrein worked as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, teacher and paediatrician in Switzerland and Russia. In her thirty-year professional career, she published over 35 papers in three languages (German, French and Russian), covering psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics and educational psychology. Among her works in the field of psychoanalysis is the essay titled "Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens"written in German in 1912, published in English as "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being". Spielrein was a pioneer of psychoanalysis and one of the first to introduce the concept of the Todestrieb (in Freudian analysis called the death drive; sometimes referred to as the "death instinct" in layman's terms).

Spielrein was one of the first psychoanalysts to conduct a case study on early concepts of schizophrenia, and to have a dissertation appear in a psychoanalytic journal.

Spielrein is increasingly recognized as an important and innovative thinker who was marginalized in history because of her unusual eclecticism, refusal to join factions, and feminist approach to psychology.

Sabina Spielrein was killed during the Holocaust on August 11, 1942, by a Nazi SS death squad, during a mass execution of Jews at the Zmievskaya Balka ravine in Rostov-on-Don, Soviet Union.