The Empirical Illustration of S. N. Spielrein’s Ideas 100 Years Later

The work touches upon the significance of basic concepts of Sabina Spielrein's research to the modern practice of counseling clients. In recent decades, the tragic life-story and creative work of Sabina Spielrein attract the attention of Russian and foreign specialists: psychoanalysts, journalists, ethnographers, historians. Sabina Spielrein is one of the pioneers of psychoanalysis; the former pupil of K. Jung and S. Freud, who has been forgotten for a long time, has received international recognition. Her life was divided into three equal parts. The first 19 years she lived in Russia (Rostov-on-Don and Warsaw), and the last years – in the USSR (in Rostov-on-Don mainly). She lived in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria between these periods. The material also brings forward a case of work with a female client. Methodological tools were presented by the tests of S. Rosenzweig and R. Thomas, “Nonexistent animal” and CAST (test for adult children of alcoholics), surveys of A. I. Tashcheva (“Attribute support of communication”), “Retrospective reflection of conflicts”, “Therapy as a line segment”, “My favorite Flower” test, and the traditional tests (“motifs”) of symboldrama. The work with the client has revealed 139 positive effects. The main and the most stable of them can be summarized as follows: 1) the girl's confidence in her mental abilities has appeared; 2) permanent internal tension and compulsive movements have disappeared; 3) she has learned how to manage her emotions in stressful situations; 4) her relationships with loved ones have been optimized, and the nature of her interaction with people has changed; 5) the client has began to derive pleasure from communication with people and from life in whole; 6) the girl has accepted her imperfection as a given, and not as an “absolute tragedy”; 7) she has realized her limits and capabilities, etc.