Steering group
Dr. Adrienne Harris
New York, USA
Founding member.
Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology, Faculty and Supervisor at New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. Co-founder and co-chair of the Sándor Ferenczi Center at the New School for Social Research. Editor at “Psychoanalytic Dialogues”, “Studies in Gender and Sexuality” and psychoanalysistoday.com, an e-journal of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Research topics: gender, analytic subjectivity, analysts of the period of WW I. Author of "‘Language is there to bewilder itself and others’: Theoretical and clinical contributions of Sabina Spielrein" (2015) and “The Ghost behind the Ghost" (2016). Editor of the volume The Émigré Analysts and American Psychoanalysis: History and Contemporary Relevance (2023), co-editor of Ghosts in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Trauma in Psychoanalysis (2016). Adrienne also co-edits the Routledge Book Series “Relational Perspectives in Psychoanalysis”, with Eyal Rozmarin.
Dr. Klara Naszkowska
Warsaw, Poland / New York, USA
Founding director.
Ph.D., cultural and oral historian of women exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality, Jewish studies, psychoanalysis, migration, memory, and postmemory. Professor at Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program at Montclair State University, NJ. Recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a Schlesinger Library Research Support Grant. Author of many articles about Spielrein and other Jewish women psychoanalysts in Polish, English, and Hungarian, including "Passions, Politics, and Drives: Sabina Spielrein in Soviet Russia" (2019), and "Sabina Spielrein (1885–1942). W poszukiwaniu własnego głosu" (2020). Her most recent book is an edited volume, Early Women Psychoanalysts: History, Biography, and Contemporary Relevance (2024). Klara was a guest editor of the upcoming special issue of "American Imago" devoted to Spielrein (2024). She is currently finishing a narrative nonfiction book, Clara Happel, Judaism, and Psychoanalysis in America: Memory, History, and Interpretation (2025) and researching her newest book, Between Silence, Memory, and Postmemory: Shoah and Migration of Polish Jewish Female Psychoanalysts in the United States (2027).
Dr. John Launer
London, UK
Founding member.
M.D., Family physician, Family therapist, Educator and Writer. He is a Honorary Lifetime Consultant at the Tavistock Clinic, London, where he is convenor of the evolution and psychotherapy group. Author of the first full length English biography of Sabina Spielrein: Sex versus Survival: The Life and Ideas of Sabina Spielrein (2014), launched with presentations at the Anna Freud Clinic in London and the New York Psychoanalytic Society. John is also
Lead Programme Director for Educational Innovation in primary care for the National Health Service in London. His other posts include honorary associate clinical professor of primary care at University College London and founding president of the Association of Narrative Practice in Healthcare. He is the longest serving medical columnist in the UK, starting with "Hospital Doctor" in 1980 and currently a regular fortnightly columnist for the "British Medical Journal".
Website: www.johnlauner.com
Current supporters
Dr. Pamela Cooper-White
New York, USA
Ph.D., LCPC, Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor Emerita of Psychology and Religion and Dean Emerita at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS) and Assisting Priest at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Author of 9 books, including Old & Dirty Gods: Religion, Antisemitism, and the Origins of Psychoanalysis (2015) & co-editor of Sabina Spielrein and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis
(2019, finalist for the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis /NAAP/ 2020 Gradiva® Award for Best Edited Book).
Prof. Vladimir Shpilrain
New York, USA
Professor of Mathematics. Research interests: Information Security, Data Science, Complexity of Algorithms.
Great-nephew of Sabina Spielrein. Vladimir was involved in a project of translating Spielrein's diaries and letters from Russian into English for the book The Untold Story of Sabina Spielrein.
Dr. Esther Rapoport
Tel Aviv, Israel
/Toronto, Canada
PsyD, clinical psychologist, teacher, and psychoanalytic candidate in clinical practice. Author of From Psychoanalytic Bisexuality to Bisexual Psychoanalysis: Desiring in the Real (2019) and “Sabina Spielrein’s death drive, queer experience and psychoanalytic twogetherness” (2021).
Prof. Fátima Siqueira Caropreso
Juiz de Fora, Brazil
Ph.D., historian of psychology and psychoanalysis, Associate Professor at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora.
Recent publications in English: “The death instinct and the mental dimension beyond the pleasure principle in the works of Spielrein and Freud” (2017), “Sabina Spielrein’s theoretical views in her letter to Carl Gustav Jung” (2019) and “Sabina Spielrein’s theory of the origin and development of language” (2020).
Prof. Magnus Ljunggren
Stockholm, Sweden
Professor Emeritus of Russian literature at the University of Gothenburg, Journalist. Author of many articles on Spielrein and Russian psychoanalysis. Responsible for tracing Spielrein’s niece Menikha and other family members.
Dr. Sabine Richebächer
Zürich, Switzerland
Dr. Phil., psychoanalyst and author. Research topics: History of psychoanalysis; Russian psychoanalysis. Her biography on Sabina Spielrein was published in several languages.
website: www.richebaecher.com/
Dr. Coline Covington
London, UK
Ph.D., training Analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology and the British Psychotherapy Foundation, former Chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council. Co-editor of Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, 1st ed. (2003) & 2nd ed. (2015)
website: www.coline-covington.co.uk
Dr. Renata Udler Cromberg
São Paulo, Brazil
Ph.D., psychoanalyst, author of Sabina Spielrein. Una pioneira da psicanálise. Obras completas, vol. 1 (2014), "O amor que ousa dizer seu nome: Sabina Spielrein - pioneira da psicanálise" and many other articles and presentations on Spielrein. Vol. 2 of the Spielrein's complete works is scheduled for publication in 2019.
Dr. Alexander Etkind
Florence, Italy
Ph.D., Professor of History of Russia-Europe Relations. Author of Eros of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (1997) which includes a chapter about Spielrein, and of many articles on Russian psychoanalysis.
Ms. Lisa Appignanesi
London, UK
Professor of English, writer and novelist. Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, a former President of English PEN and former Chair of the Trustees of the Freud Museum in London. Co-author of Freud’s Women (with John Forrester) (1992).
Dr. Ana Tomcic
Essex, UK
Ph.D., cultural historian, Senior Research Officer at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, and trainee at the Society for Social and Critical Psychoanalysis in Cornwall, UK. Her research interests include the history of psychoanalysis, 20th-century literature, gender, sexuality, and the role of class in psychoanalytic contexts. She has published on Sabina Spielrein and Melitta Schmideberg. Ana is currently writing a book Rethinking Progress: Psychoanalysis, Modernism and Queer Development.
Dr. Fernando Vidal
Barcelona, Spain
Ph.D., Habil., Research professor at ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies), historian of the human sciences. Author of "Sabina Spielrein, Jean Piaget - going their own ways" (2001).
website: icrea.academia.edu/FVidal.
Dr. Bernard Minder
Lenzburg, Switzerland
Dr. Med., psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice. Research interests: history of medicine, esp. the beginnings of clinical psychoanalysis. Author of the papers on Spielrein's Burghölzli documents.
Marina Bluvshtein
Chicago, USA
Ph.D, LP, LMFT, NASAP, president of the International Association of Individual Psychology (IAIP), director of the center for Adlerian Practice and Scholarship and faculty at Adler University in Chicago. Her research interests include women’s voices in psychology. In 2015, she presented a lecture “The heart of psychology and the psychology of heart “at the opening of the Spielrein’s museum during the International Conference in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
Dr. Frank Marchese
Toronto, Canada
Ph.D., Course Director, Faculty of Health, Dept. of Psychology. Teaches in the areas of motivation, personality, developmental psychology, learning, abnormal psychology. Author of Coming into Being: Sabina Spielrein, Jung, Freud, and Psychoanalysis (2015).
Dr. Peter Rudnytsky
Gainesville, USA
Ph.D., Professor of English at the University of Florida and Head of the Department of Academic and Professional Affairs of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Dr. Michael Gerard Plastow
Melbourne, Australia
Psychoanalyst and a child psychiatrist. Michael convenes a seminar on The Child, the Adult, and the Subject of Psychoanalysis. Author of Sabina Spielrein and the Poetry of Psychoanalysis and "The Watershed of the Symptom: from Rhine to Rhône with Piaget and Spielrein."
Dr. Ben Greenberg
Athens, USA
PsyD, clinical psychologist in private practice. In his work and writing, he integrates contemporary psychoanalytic models with social justice and somatic approaches for the treatment of trauma. A former Fench hornist and educator who has published extensively on auditory disability, he is currently working on a manuscript about intersecting themes in Gustav Mahler's symphonies and Sabina Spielrein's theoretical contributions.
Nikol Alexander-Floyd
New York, USA
Ph.D., JD, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. Her work focuses on women and politics, feminist theory, public law, and Africana Studies. Author of Re-Imagining Black Women: A Critique of Post-Feminist and Post-Civil Rights Melodrama in Culture and Politics (2021). She is currently conducting an independent study group on Sabina Spielrein, along with Sanja Medich, and developing pedagogical resources for instruction on Spielrein's life and work.
Dr. Felicity Kelcourse
Indianapolis, USA
Ph.D., LMHC, Assoc. Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, IN. Co-editor of Sabina Spielrein and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis (2019, finalist for the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis /NAAP/ 2020 Gradiva® Award for Best Edited Book).
Dr. Eva Hoffman
London, UK
Ph.D., Professor of literature, writer and novelist. She has written and lectured on exile, historical memory, human rights and cross-cultural relations. Her books have been widely translated.
Agnieszka Sobolewska
Paris, France / Warsaw, Poland
MA., Ph.D. student, research fellow, author and editor. She is currently working on a project Between Self-Analysis and Autobiography. The Everyday Writing Practices of Freud’s Disciples and Their Impact on the Psychoanalytic Theory devoted to the cultural and queer history of psychoanalysis in Central Europe, and a book Queer Theories and Practices of Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud—Sándor Ferenczi—Georg Groddeck on psychoanalytic theories of non-normative sexuality. Both projects include the work of Sabina Spielrein.
Dr. Vanessa Sinclair
Stockholm, Sweden
PsyD, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. Author of Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art: the Cut in Creation (2020), Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics and Poetry (2019), On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (2018).
Violaine Gelly
Paris, France
Psychotherapist and journalist specialising in psychology and psychoanalysis. Author of La vie dérobée de Sabina Spielrein (Fayard 2018), translated into Polish as Skradzione życie Sabiny Spielrein (Dialog, 2020).
Kathy Sinsheimer,
Oakland, USA
MFT, Psychoanalyst, Marriage and Family Therapist, writer. Personal and Supervising Analyst, Faculty Member at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, San Francisco. Currently writing a biographical/autobiographical paper regarding Sabina Spielrein, setting the paper in the context of the current writing environment during the pandemic.
Dr. Trinidad Simón Macías
Madrid, Spain
Psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private practice. Author of Juego Limpio. Sabina Spielrein entre Jung y Freud y los tiempos actuales (2014), "Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942): Un alma infantil" (2013) and "Pasiones de una madre"(2017).
Dr. Ruth L. Cape
Sherman, USA
Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of German at Austin College. Publishes bilingual and annotated editions of historical documents.
Co-editor of The Essential Writings of Sabina Spielrein. Pioneer of Psychoanalysis (2018).
website: www.austincollege.edu/ruth-cape/
Dr. Raymond Burt
Wilmington, USA
Ph.D., Professor of German. Research interests: Friedrich S. Krauss, Austrian literature. Co-editor of The Essential Writings of Sabina Spielrein. Pioneer of Psychoanalysis (2018).
Dr. Lance Owens
Salt Lake City, US
M.D., Historian and physician in clinical practice. Author of Jung in Love: The 'Mysterium' in 'Liber Novus' (2015).
Dr. Stephani Stephens
Canberra, Australia
Ph.D., Researcher in Jungian Psychology. Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Jungian Studies (2004-2013). Author of Ways of being: C.G. Jung and the Dead (forthcoming 2019).
Prof. Mireille Cifali
Geneva, Switzerland
Hon. Professor, historian and psychoanalyst. Mireille works to define a clinical approach in the sciences of education. Author of a number of papers on Spielrein.
website: www.mireillecifali.ch
Dr. Henry Zvi Lothane
New York, USA
M.D., Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst, Author and Educator. Clinical Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY; Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Honorary Member of Polish Psychiatric Association,
Member of the International Psychoanalytical Association and of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Author of many articles on Spielrein published in English, Italian, German, Polish, and Russian.
Dr. James S. Chisholm
Crawley, Australia
Ph.D., evolutionary anthropologist with an interest in Spielrein's evolutionary ideas.
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Sabina Karwala
Warsaw, Poland
M.A., Actor, singer, composer, lyrics. PhD. student at the Leon Schiller National Film School in Łódź. Sabina is currently developing a film musical Kilka lekcji Sabiny Spielrein (A Few Lessons from Sabina Spielrein).
Dr. Lena Magnone
Warsaw, Poland
Ph.D., Habil., Assistant Professor at the University of Warsaw. Research focus: late 19th and early 20th-century literature, with a particular focus on Central-European modernisms.
Mr. Marcus Vinicius Neto Silva
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
M.A., Psychologist, psychoanalyst, researcher focused on history of the early psychoanalytic thought and movement. Author of A construção da pulsão de morte freudiana (with chapter 4 devoted to Spielrein) and "Destruição e devir de Sabina Spielrein."
Prof. Katy Zaidman
Oshawa, Canada
Professor of mechanical engineering and professional engineer, Standards Council of Canada, The Canadian General Standards Board, former chair of Ontario Chapter of Canadian Institute for Non-destructive Evaluation. A great-grandniece of Sabina Spielrein.
Dr. Ronald Britton
London, UK
M.D., Distinguished Fellow, Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, child psychiatrist. Former Chair of the Child and Parents Department, Tavistock Clinic. Author of Sex, Death, and the Superego (2003).
Dr. Moshe Rachmuth
Portland, OR, USA
PhD., Assoc. Professor, Department of World Languages and Literatures, Portland State University. His research interests include studies of the Hebrew Bible as literature, with emphasis on immigration, women, psychological readings of the Bible, and visual interpretation. Moshe currently works on a Spielreinian reading of the relationships between immigrant and local women in the Book of Ruth.
Kenneth Granle
Chicago, USA
M.A., J.D. Adjunct faculty and graduate enrollment specialist at Roosevelt University. Originally trained as a lawyer, now focused on higher education administration and education policy. His interest in Sabina Spielrein focuses on her contributions to the subfields of psycholinguistics and educational psychology as well as her identity as a Jew.
Catherine Humble
London, UK
Executive Editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Honorary Associate Lecturer at UCL Psychoanalysis Unit and Tutor in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths. She has co-edited a book on psychosomatics and published several academic papers on psychoanalysis, literature and film. She is writing a creative non-fiction book on the first female psychoanalysts, commissioned by Faber and FSG.
Mr. Peter Mayer
New York, USA
Proprietor of Duckworth/Overlook Press, former CEO of Viking Penguin, publisher of biography of Spielrein. Peter sadly passed away in May 2018.
Dr. Ekaterina Golynkina
London, UK
Dr. Ekaterina Golynkina, London, UK.
Ph.D., Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, British Psychoanalytical Society.
Mr. Alexander Zhuryavlov
London, UK
Journalist and translator, BBC world service. Distant relative of Spielrein’s step-daughter Nina Snetkova (Nina's mother, Olga Vassilievna was a cousin of Alexander's grandfather Valery Druzin).
Prof. Paweł Dybel
Warsaw, Poland
Professor of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Pedagogical University of Krakow. Author of many books and articles on psychoanalysis in Polish, English and German.
Dr. Henry Jablonski
Stockholm, Sweden
M.D., Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice. President of The International Balint Federation (2007-2013), President of the Swedish Balint Society, President of the Swedish Association of Medical Psychology. Author of a review of Sex versus Survival (2015).
Dr. Marie Brown
New York, USA
PhD, clinical psychologist, clinician and researcher focused on the intersection of “madness” and women with an emphasis on the reproductive body. Co-editor of Women & Psychosis Multidisciplinary Perspectives and Women and the Psychosocial Construction of Madness (both with M. Charles) and Emancipatory Perspectives on Madness (with R. Brown).
Dr. Neil Vickers
London, UK
Ph.D., Professor of English Literature and the Health Humanities, co-director of the Centre for the Humanities and Health. Research interests: psychoanalysis and the subjective experience of physical illness.
Dr. Valentin Balanovskiy
Kaliningrad, Russia
Ph.D., research fellow at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, chairman of the Kaliningrad Division of Russian Philosophical Society. Author of “S.N. Spielrein’s Contribution to Development of Key Notions of C.G. Jung’s Analytical Psychology” and “Role of Sabina Spielrein in Forming Theoretical Basis of the Analytical Psychology” (both in Russian, 2020).
Dr. Barbara Wharton
Harpenden, UK
M.A., training analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology, Training Therapist and Supervisor for the British Association of Psychotherapy. Former editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology , co-editor of Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, 1st ed. (2003) & 2nd ed. (2015).
Dr. Ilona Melker
New York, USA
LCSW, Jungian analyst and Certified Sandplay Therapist and Instructor in private practice. Supervisory analyst at the CG Jung Institute of New York and the Jung Foundation. Author of "Sabina Spielrein and Frau M
Two cases of women’s psychosis through the lens of Jungian complex theory."
Maria Beatriz Bueno Domingues
São Paulo, Brazil
M.A., Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo, psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private practice. Maria is currently working on a PhD thesis "An Erased Authorship: Sabina Spielrein and the Feminine in the History of Psychoanalysis."
Guided by the concept of feminine and its reception in the psychoanalytic tradition, she connects the neglect of Spielrein’s work and her haunting presence in the psychoanalytic field to Spielrein’s own metapsychological proposals and creative process.