ABSTRACT
Sex, death, and psychoanalysis were the main preoccupations of Sabina Spielrein both as a patient and as an analyst, and she was the first to write a paper on the destructive or death instinct. Like Bertha Pappenheim, Sabina was a gifted and difficult child, much given to internal preoccupations and day-dreams. In September 1907, in Amsterdam C. G. Jung read his first clinical psychoanalytic paper; it was on hysteria and was based on his treatment of Sabina Spielrein. When Sabina Spielrein began her analysis in 1904, analytic theory was mainly based on clinical experience with cases of hysteria. The phantasy of uniting in death with the beloved leads to a new, shared, identity: this is the main thrust of Sabina Spielrein's paper, "Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens". While Sabina was in hospital during 1904-1905, Jung worked with her on the basis of his own association technique and what he had read of Anna Freud.
