A Dangerous Method

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung's professional alliance becomes strained when Jung begins treating — and later conducting an affair with — Sabina Spielrein, a brilliant but deeply troubled young woman who arrives at his clinic displaying violent, sexualised symptoms. As Jung pursues increasingly unorthodox therapeutic approaches influenced by Otto Gross, his divergence from Freudian orthodoxy on the nature of the unconscious and the role of sexuality deepens an irreparable rift between the two founding figures of psychoanalysis. Spielrein ultimately transcends her patient status to become a significant theorist in her own right, her ideas contributing to the very debates that drove her lovers and mentors apart.