Sabina spielrein e carl gustav jung biography

New translation provides insights into a key patient—and analyst—in the history of psychoanalysis

Illustrations by Austin Hughes

IN APRIL OF , a month before her discharge from the care of Carl Jung at the Burghölzli Psychiatric Hospital, nineteen-year-old Sabina Spielrein visited the University of Zurich and contemplated a return to normal life and resumption of her studies.

She wrote in her Russian diary:

I was at the university. I have a pile of impressions but no patience at all to describe it.

Sabina spielrein e carl gustav jung biography

I was particularly impressed with the professor of zoology. I was passionately interested but presently a reaction kicked in and my heart is heavy again! I cannot become friends with the students; I am closed off from them; what they will see is the cheerful, superficial side of my soul but its very depth will remain hidden from all.

It is somehow impossible for me to open up to these children, I feel that I am muc