Abstract

CAROPRESO, Fátima Siqueira. The mental functioning and the ancestral bases of the psyche according to Sabina Spielrein. Tempo psicanal. [online]. 2017, vol.49, n.2, pp. 126-151. ISSN 0101-4838.

Although interest in the Russian psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein has grown in the last decades, studies about her are still mainly focused on aspects of her biography. However, the originality of her theoretical and clinical thought justify a more careful analysis of its internal development, so that Spielrein's role in the history of psychoanalysis can be fully ascertained. The objective of this paper is to present the ideas about mental functioning proposed in two of her first works: "On the psychological content of a case of schizophrenia (Dementia praecox)" (1911) and "Destruction as the cause of coming-into-being" (1912). It is argued that, in these works, Spielrein presents an original conception of mental dynamics that, in many aspects, anticipates some hypotheses that would be later developed in psychoanalysis.

Keywords : Sabina Spielrein; psychoanalysis; schizophrenia; phylogeny; death instinct.

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