This is a presentation by Bob Gordon and Alan Tjeltveit.

1. The Birth of Countertransference as an Ethics Issue with
Scenes from the Recent Film "A Dangerous Method"
May 18, 2012 -Presenters: Robert M. Gordon, Ph.D., and Alan Tjeltveit, Ph.D.
Learning Objectives:
1. You will learn about the history of
countertransference, boundaries, self-reflection, and self-
deception.
2. You will see how they can lead to ethical lapses or
facilitate treatment.
3. You will learn how to determine the appropriate use of
countertransference.

2. • All proceeds from this continuing education in
ethics workshop will be donated to PPF. PPF
contributes educational grants to worthy
psychology graduate students, helps fund
Disaster Relief training, our Colleague
Assistance Program and PPA's annual
Workshops for the Public.
• The proceeds to this workshop will go to the
Dr. Stephen N. Berk Memorial Education
Award .

3. Kerr’s 1993 Book “A Most Dangerous Method”
Using Spielrein’s diary and letters including Jung’s letters to
her, clinical psychologist and historian Kerr reconstructs
Spielrein's relationship with Jung and Freud, portraying her
as an influential figure during their period of collaboration.
His dense and scholarly book was made into the more
sensationalized movie “A Dangerous Method.”

4. Inaccuracies in the Film
• According to Speilrein’s diary, it is very likely that
she and Jung had a sexual affair. It is very
unlikely, however, that he spanked her, as shown
in the film.
• Otto Gross did contend that repression is a bad
thing, and that transference should be used for
the therapist’s advantage, which he saw as
helping the patient. However, the film implies
that he was a greater influence on Jung than he
actually was.

5. Sabina Spielrein
(СабинаНафтуловнаШпильрейн)
Born 1885 into a family of Jewish doctors in
Rostov, Russia. One of her brothers, Isaac Spielrein
was a Soviet psychologist. Spielrein was married to
PavelScheftel, a physician of Russian Jewish
descent. They had two daughters: Renate, born
1912, and Eva, born 1924.

6. At age 19, Spielreinwas admitted in 1904 to the
Burghölzli mental hospital near Zürich, for about
a year. While there, she established a deep
emotional relationship with Jung who later was
her medical dissertation advisor. The historian
and psychoanalyst Peter Loewenberg argues that
this was a sexual relationship, in breach of
professional ethics, and that it "jeopardized his
position at the Burghölzli and led to his rupture
with Bleuler and his departure from the
University of Zurich”.

7. Jung’s Notes 1907
“She could not sit at table without being
overcome by thoughts of defecation, and if
she was reproached in any wayshe answered
by sticking out her tongue or . . . cries of
disgust, and gestures of horror, because each
time she had before her the vivid image of her
father's chastising hand, coupled with sexual
excitement, which immediately passed over
into ill-concealed masturbation'.

8. • Spielfrein's meal-time obsession was
commonplace at the time, and
unsurprising in a household that
grotesquely suppressed any mention of
natural functions.
• Her mother managed to have the
curriculum of her school changed
specifically in order to prevent her
daughter learning about sexual
reproduction.

9. C. G. Jung 4 June 1909
“Dear Professor Freud,
…Spielreinis the person I wrote you about…She
was, so to speak, my test case, for which reason I
remembered her with special gratitude and
affection. Since I knew from experience that she
would immediately relapse if I withdrew my
support, I prolonged the relationship over the
years and in the end found myself morally
obliged, as it were, to devote a large measure of
friendship to her, until I saw that an unintended
wheel had started turning, whereupon I finally
broke with her. She was, of course, systematically
planning my seduction, which I considered
inopportune. Now she is seeking revenge…”

10. Sigmund Freud 7 June 1909
“Dear friend,
Since I know you take a personal interest in the Sp. matter
I am informing you of developments…
I understood your telegram correctly, your explanation
confirmed my guess. Well, after receiving your wire I wrote
Fräulein Sp. a letter in which I affected
ignorance, pretending to think her suggestion was that of
an over-zealous enthusiast. I said that since the matter on
which she wished to see me was of interest chiefly to
myself, I could not take the responsibility of encouraging
her to take such a trip and failed to see why she should put
herself out in this way. It therefore seemed preferable that
she should first acquaint me with the nature of her
business. I have not yet received an answer…”

11. Sigmund Freud 7 June 1909…This is, significantly, the
first recorded reference to the term “countertransference.
“Such experiences, though painful, are
necessary and hard to avoid. Without them
we cannot really know life and what we are
dealing with. I myself have never been taken
in quite so badly, but I have come very close to
it a number of times and had a narrow
escape…and the fact that I was ten years
older… saved me from similar experiences.
But no lasting harm is done. They help us to
develop the thick skin we need and to
dominate 'counter-transference', which is
after all a permanent problem for us.”

12. C. G. Jung 21 June 1909
“Dear Professor Freud,
I have good news to report of my Spielrein affair. I took too
black a view of things. After breaking with her 1 was almost
certain of her revenge and was deeply disappointed only by
the banality of the form it took. The day before yesterday
she turned up at my house and had a very decent talk with
me, during which it transpired that the rumour buzzing
about me does not emanate from her at all. My ideas of
reference, understandable enough in the
circumstances, attributed the rumour to her, but I wish to
retract this forthwith. Furthermore, she has freed herself
from the transference in the best and nicest way and has
suffered no relapse (apart from a paroxysm of weeping
after the separation). Her intention to come to you was not
aimed at any intrigue but only at paving the way for a talk
with me…”

13. Sigmund Freud 30 June 1909
“Dear friend,
…Immediately after receiving your letter I wrote
Fräulein Sp. a few amiable lines, giving her
satisfaction, and today received an answer from her.
Amazingly awkward—is she a foreigner by any
chance?—or very inhibited, hard to read and hard to
understand. All I can gather from it is that the matter
means a great deal to her and that she is very much in
earnest. Don't find fault with yourself for drawing me
into it; it was not your doing but hers. And the matter
has ended in a manner satisfactory to all. You have
been oscillating, as I see, between the extremes of
Bleuler and Gross…”

14. • Freud wrote just after hearing from Jung about his
transference misadventure,'A Special Type of
Choice of Object made by Men' (1910), in it he
describes 'rescue phantasies'.
• Sabina Spielrein used this idea of Freud's when she
came to write her paper, 'Destruction as the cause
of coming into being' (1912), which is in large part
based on her experience of her own analysis and
her theories about it. Jung saw himself as rescuing
her, she clearly saw him as her child.

15. • At the end of their affair she wrote in her
journal, "he loves me because of the
remarkable parallelism in our thoughts… I felt
like a mother who only wanted the best for
him.”
• Sabina saw herself as the mother who bore
him an imaginary child who was a small
replica of him. They developed a shared
phantasy of a child whom they called
Siegfried.

16. Sabina, who had married in 1912 and now
had a daughter, wrote to Jung saying she had
given up this phantasy of Siegfried for the sake
of her real daughter.
Jung replied angrily:
“Dear doctor, ...What you are calling killing
Siegfried is to me a rationalistic and
materialistic razing to the ground.... One of its
sparks is Siegfried. This spark can and will
never be extinguished. If you betray this, then
you are cursed.” (Jung 1919)

17. While Spielrein is not often given more than a
footnote in the history of the development
of psychoanalysis, her conception of the
sexual drive as containing both an instinct of
destruction and an instinct of
transformation, presented to the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society in 1912 “Destruction
as the Cause of Coming To Be” in fact
anticipates both Freud's "death drive" and
Jung's views on "transformation”.

18. • Spielrein became one of the first female
psychoanalysts. She received top honors in
psychiatry upon graduation from the
University of Zurich, and subsequently wrote
30 professional papers.
• She contributed to child psychology and the
origin of spoken language, and was a great
influence on Jean Piaget, who underwent a
training analysis with her.
• She was an influence on psychologists
Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky.

19. 1923Sabina Spielrein returned to Russia and worked in
Moscow at the 'Russian Psychoanalytical
Institute, the 'Psychoanalytical Home for Children'
and at the 'Department of Child Psychology' at the
'First University of Moscow'.
1933Psychoanalysis was prohibited by Stalin.
1935-38Sabina's brothers were deported and executed
1937Her husband died of heart failure.
1942In August, Sabina and her two daughters were
executed by the Nazis outside of Rostov, together
with many other Jews.

20. Spielreinlost the love of her life and two
mentors, and although she had her career as a
psychoanalyst, she could not pursue it in the
same way as in the past without reopening old
wounds.

21. Freud lost someone he regarded as a son and
political ally, along with the excitement and
intellectual stimulation that Jung contributed.
Jung lost the emotional anchors that Freud and
Spielrein served for him, and he subsequently
suffered his own mental and emotional
breakdown.

22. Freud Continued to Explore
Countertransference
“For the doctor the phenomenon signifies a
valuable piece of enlightenment and a useful
warning against any tendency to a counter-
transference which may be present in his own
mind. He must recognize that the patient's
falling in love is induced by the analytic
situation and is not to be attributed to the
charms of his own person; so that he has no
grounds whatever for being proud of such a
'conquest'.” (Freud, 1915, pp.160-161)

23. Countertransference and Our Ethics Code
“I feel that countertransference should retain its
originalmeaning, and only refer to the therapist’s
inappropriate reactions to the patient. This should not be
confused with the therapist’s affective attunement and
appropriate emotional reactions…
Freud’s original ground rules have been for the most part
incorporated into our ethical code. Our knowledge of
appropriate ethical behavior and self-reflection should
help most therapists to know to suppress and sublimate
countertransference reactions. But since
countertransference comes from unconscious needs and
conflicts, we all need at times consultation, supervision, or
psychotherapy."
• Gordon, Robert M. (2003) “The Countertransference Controversy”. July Issue
Pennsylvania Psychologist.pp 8-9.