A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein [Hardcover]

John Kerr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 24, 1993

The story of Sabina Spielrein--a student and lover of Jung and later a colleague and friend of Freud--provides insight into the split between the two founders of the new method of understanding human consciousness. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This exciting study sheds much new light on the vexed Jung-Freud partnership and on the current status of psychoanalysis. At its hub is Sabina Spielrein (1886-1941), one of the first women psychoanalysts, whom Jung treated for hysteria when she was 18. She evidently fell in love with Jung, and he broke off their intense relationship to avert public scandal. Spielrein found in Freud a friend and mentor, confiding to him the details of her attachment to Jung. Kerr, a clinical psychologist and historian, asserts that Freud attempted to use what he knew about Jung's personal life to exert ideological control over the psychoanalytic movement. In Kerr's scenario, Jung apparently was aware of Freud's secret affair with his sister-in-law Minna Bernays--an affair which is denied by many biographiers, but that Kerr defends as plausible based on Jung's explicit testimony and on recent scholarship. It was after Jung threatened to retaliate by revealing what he knew about Freud's personal life, Kerr maintains, that their collaboration dissolved. He argues that both men had an opportunity to make psychoanalysis an open, scientifically grounded discipline, but instead succumbed to ambition, dogma and personal animus. Kerr also charges that Freud and Jung suppressed Spielrein's own fertile theory of the unconscious, which conceived of sexuality as fusion rather than pleasure.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Spielrein, one of the first women psychoanalysts, was Jung's patient, student, and lover; later, she was Freud's colleague in Vienna. Her diary and letters were previously discussed in Aldo Carotenuto's A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Spielrein Between Jung and Freud ( LJ 5/15/82). Using these and other sources, including Jung's letters to Spielrein, clinical psychologist and historian Kerr reconstructs Spielrein's relationship with Jung and Freud, portraying her as an influential if peripheral figure during their period of collaboration. Kerr has written a fascinating history of psychoanalysis focusing on its origin as a clinical method of psychotherapy. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.
- Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 607 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (August 24, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679404120
• ISBN-13: 978-0679404125
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars human, all too human, January 10, 2004

By 

Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLO... (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein (Hardcover)

Isn't it strange that although this well-researched and readable book has been out ten years now, not a single analyst, Jungian or Freudian, has reviewed it here?

During my training as a depth psychologist I heard and read a lot about the Freud-Jung relationship, about its shattering on the rocks of politicking and father complexes, and a bit about the unfortunate Sabina Spielrein, one-time patient of Jung. At this point nobody in the field is shocked to hear about the Founding Fathers having sex with their patients, however inappropriate or damaging it may have been (Freud seems to have been a rare exception to this kind of acting out).

What's troubling to read in this book is not so much Jung's having an affair with Spielrein--harmful enough all by itself--but the casual brutality in how he handled it: the resumption of it after she had attacked him and asked Freud for help, Jung's lame excuses for dropping her (even telling her at one point that he'd displaced an attraction to Freud's daughter onto Sabina--how nice), the coldness of his self-justification to Sabina's mother when she found out via letter from Emma Jung (basically: no fee was charged, so it wasn't really that bad--but if you wish to discuss it, that'll be ten francs an hour).... The shocking, manipulative sadism of Jung's repeated betrayals of Spielrein might make difficult reading for those who revere him, even granting that they took place before Jung's "confrontation with the unconscious."

The book also sheds light on the human background of Jung's theories about the anima. Plenty here for feminist critics.

Kerr also makes a convincing case for Freud's affair with his sister-in-law Minna, although this reader is not entirely sold on it (allow me to keep at least one post-doctoral illusion!). The affair matters because of Kerr's claim that Jung and Freud indulged in implied threats of mutual sexual blackmail toward the end of their correspondence (I won't show them yours if you don't show them mine).

I can see after reading this book why some of Jung's late letters to Freud alternate between aggression and what seems like paranoia. For six years I ran men's groups and often noticed that clients with a guilty conscience, especially about having had affairs, lived in the constant fear that someone would tell their current partner about it. Some of what Jung wrote to Freud is consistent with a man who knows his lover (Spielrein) has sent a full confession to a friend and colleague (Freud) but does NOT know just how full a confession it was. Jung's chronic uncertainty about what Freud did or did not know must have added tremendous stress to the ongoing battle of wills and egos. But the submergence of the gifted if borderline-prone Spielrein is the real tragedy in this unamusing comedy of errors.

This book is not only interesting reading, but a good history of psychoanalysis and its pioneers--very handy for a psychology course. Includes an index, an extensive bibliography, and a handy bibliographic essay explaining just where the author got what, and why.

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Most Dangerous Method, May 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein (Paperback)

For a very solid piece of research, the book is a surprisingly easy read and gripping. Beneath the text, the author subtly raises important social questions for our times. Reflected through the personal histories and theories of Freud, Jung, and Spielrein, Kerr reveals both what was novel and liberating in psychoanalysis (the centrality of sexuality) and what was constricting to the three of them (the practical need to be preoccupied with themselves and their various careers). In this, he raises a very contemporary issue: though love remains desired by all, it is deeply problematical in the face of our culture's particular need for self-preservation.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Three Am-Egos, January 3, 2012

By 

A. colbert - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dangerous Method (Movie Tie-in Edition): The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein (Vintage) (Paperback)

Not a trained psychologist, but familiar enough with the tenets of psychoanalysis to appreciate the treatment's genesis and evolution. It's a wonder it survived the maelstrom of personality and cult that surrounded its founders. I did not know much about Spielrien, and i have a sense that her romantic connection to Jung conflates her contribution to the methodology, and that she will be remembered now as the muse to Jung rather than as an intellectual equal. The love affair's anecdotes and her letters will likely propel the upcoming movie forward and helped to sell the book. The correspondence between Jung and Freud is quite interesting, and I really enjoyed their struggle to remain colleagues, even as they try to wrest control of the movement from the other's grip. Their attempts at sincerity and candid self effacement, alternate with Jung's naive willingness to broaden the international dialogue, while Freud imperiously and arbitrarily asserts his authority to delimit the inner sanctum. Beautifully written, and exhaustively researched, the author elegantly synthesizes the written historic record and adds his reasonable and intelligent voice to draw discerning conclusions. Can't imagine the movie could equal any part of this excellent book.