A Dangerous Method

The movie A Dangerous Method pertains to the relationships of two influential

psychoanalysts: Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and Sabrina Spielrein. The movie starts with
Spielrein admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Zurich, Switzerland where she meets Carl Jung. He
decides to treat her with psychoanalysis and is treated with word association and dream
interpretation. The sessions with Jung reveal that Spielrein grew up in an abusive household
with her explaining that her father was often angry and frequently lost his temper. He would
make her go to this small room naked, and would spank her. She would feel bouts of shame due
to the fact that she found pleasure in the pain and humiliation. This pain and humiliation that
she feels is eventually realized as masochism. The time that Spielrein and Jung spend together—
as doctor and patient than as colleagues—they share ideas and insights and eventually find
themselves becoming attracted to each other. Though at first, Jung resists his feelings of desire
towards Spielrein, after Otto Gross—Jung’s new patient and a fellow psychoanalyst—
encourages him to indulge in his sexual desires Jung relents and begins having an affair with
Spielrein.

Jung is ambitious, intelligent, curious, and aims to find a method in which the patient is
not simply just the illness they have but that they are able to reinvent themselves, to change.
His thirst for more knowledge on other methods and ideas on concepts other than the ones
Freud believed in was one of the reasons their relationship had dissolved.

The beginning of Jung’s and Freud’s relationship had started with Jung taking in Spielrein
as his patient. They corresponded with each other on the topic of psychoanalysis and Jung had
eventually flown to Vienna, Austria to meet with Freud. The two shared ideas on psychoanalysis
with Freud seeing potential in Jung as someone he could mentor and Jung eager to discuss
psychoanalysis and other things that pertained to their field. Their first meeting was rather
optimistic. The two of them spend over ten hours together just having conversation on
psychoanalysis. However, the more they met, the more they discussed, and tension eventually
started growing between them. Freud was pragmatic and firm on the fact that Jung should
focus on psychoanalysis and not meander towards other ideas on the psyche, but Jung did not

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 agree with the fact that there was only one method in treating patients. At a certain point
Freud’s belief that sex was always a factor in neurosis and Jung’s interest in the occult was too
different to the other and that Freud would not compromise to Jung’s ideas—plus the fact that
Jung had admitted to Freud that he had broken his oath as a physician and slept with his patient
—had found their relationship to start falling apart. This is made obvious in the scene in which
they were on a boat to America with the both of them sharing their dreams for the other to
analyze. This is the scene that shows the audience that the two psychoanalysts had inevitably
realized that they would never get through to each other. In the final correspondence between
Freud and Jung in the movie, Jung says that Freud treats his friends as patients which Freud
disputes. Spielrein attempts to convince Freud into working alongside Jung, stating
psychoanalysis would not develop if they were still at odds with each other. Her efforts do not
work and the two never reconcile. At the end of the movie a pregnant Spielrein visits Jung and
they have a heartfelt conversation where Jung also confides in her about how he sees Freud as a
narrowminded in his ideas on psychoanalysis then admits that he’s become a better person and
psychoanalyst because of the love they had for each other.

The characters in the movie are played by an incredibly talented cast with Michael
Fassbender, Kiera Knightley, and Viggo Mortensen as Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein, and Sigmund
Freud respectively. It showcases a very convincing beginning, middle, and end to the
relationship of Jung and Freud. Its depiction of early psychoanalysis, from my knowledge, also
seems accurate. This is in which the therapist sits in an area that is not in the patient’s line of
sight. According to Freud this method is meant to allow the patient to freely express themselves
and not feel as if they are being observed or studied.

The movie A Dangerous Method is a wonderful insight to the relationship and

connection between three individuals who created, developed, and contributed to
psychoanalysis. It is engaging and makes you ponder on the frustrations of Jung when he was
with Freud, the way in which Freud was firm in his beliefs, and how Spielrein grows as someone
who did not believe that she could be anything more than the illness she had but eventually
finds purpose and becomes a psychoanalyst.

This study source was downloaded by 100000837203084 from CourseHero.com on 02-27-2022 23:26:34 GMT -06:00

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