Essay Review

ALDO CAROTENUTO, A secret symmetry; Sabina Spielrein between Jung and Freud, trans. from the Italian by Arno Pomerans, John Shepley, and Krishna Winston, New York, Pantheon Books, 1982, 8vo, pp. xix, 250, [no price stated]. HANS KONRAD ISELIN, Zur Entstehung von C. G. Jungs "Psychologischen Typen". Der Briefwechsel zwischen C. G. Jung und Hans Schmid-Guisan im Lichte ihrer Freundschaft, Aarau, Verlag Sauerlander, 1982, 8vo, pp. 152, [no price stated], (paperback). ROBERT S. STEELE, Freud and Jung. Conflicts of interpretation, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, 8vo, pp. x, 390, £14.95. The 1970s saw the publication of several full biographies of Jung, mostly by writers who had had first-hand contact with him: A. Storr (1973); M.-L. von Franz (1975); P. J. Stern (1976); L. van der Post (1976); B. Hannah (1976); V. Brome (1978). Basing themselves largely on the autobiographical outline given in Jung's own Memories, dreams, reflections (1961), they added their own -stories to the growing collection of Jungiana, often in the form of personal testimonials to the great man, or occasionally and cautiously alluding to some controversial aspect of his personality, backed up with anonymous references for fear of offending the Jung family. This wave of biographers was followed by another, who attempted to apply outside principles to the Jung story (P. Homans, 1979, context theory; J.-R. Staude, 1981, new adult development psychology). To date, however, none of these works has been especially satisfying to medical historians, who tend to favour the long chapter on Jung in H. Ellenberger's Discovery of the unconscious (1970). But there are signs that the situation is changing, with the appearance of three books, all written by people who have had no personal contact with Jung. Two of their authors, Carotenuto and Iselin, publish new documentary materials relating to Jung, while the third, Steele, though ostensibly viewing Jung through "hermeneutic principles", does a creditable job of analysing already printed historical materials. These new books represent a shift in direction, away from an almost exclusive focus on Jung, towards a concentration on persons in Jung's sphere of influence. Carotenuto's work deals mostly with the relationship between Jung and Sabina Spielrein, MD (1885-1937?), who was actually an associate of both Jung and Freud, before and after their break. Her name would probably still lie forgotten in the dusty pages of early psychoanalytic journals, or be faintly remembered as an odd footnote in the collected writings of Jung and Freud, had it not been for the publication of the Freud/Jung letters in 1974. It was then brought to light that Spielrein had also been an embarrassing complication in Jung's personal life. Following up this historical clue with admirable diligence, Carotenuto has uncovered the existence of a Spielrein diary for the years 1909-12; several letters and fragments of letters to Jung from 1911 to 1918; several letters and fragments of letters to Freud, 1909; twenty letters from Freud to Spielrein, 1909-23; and thirty-four letters from Jung to Spielrein. All of the above, excepting the letters from Jung to Spielrein, appear in the first half of the book. Although we are not told why permission to publish these particular Jung letters has been denied, the Jung family has curiously allowed Carotenuto to make a few brief quotes from them in the essay part of his text. According to Carotenuto's reconstruction of the story, Spielrein arrived on the scene from Russia in August 1904, as a patient of Jung's at the Biirgholzli in Zurich. After her discharge, she continued to be analysed by Jung, and graduated from the Zurich University Medical School in 1911, with Jung as her thesis supervisor. Afterwards, she moved to Vienna to become an active participant in the famous Wednesday night meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association. After marriage, she practised in Berlin and Geneva, where she was the analyst of Piaget. In 1923, she moved back to Russia and disappeared from history in the Stalinist purge of 1937. Carotenuto was unfortunately denied access to the Spielrein case records at the Burgholzli. But we learn from the Freud/Jung letters that Spielrein was Jung's first published psy-