FAQ

The script is based on Christopher Hampton's 2002 play "The Talking Cure", which itself was based on the 1993 non-fiction book A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein by John Kerr. Christopher Hampton initially wrote a screenplay for Julia Roberts in about 1995 called "Sabina", but it did not end up being produced into a motion picture.

Otto Hans Adolf Gross was an early disciple of Sigmund Freud who became an anarchist. Carl Jung said his worldview changed when he attempted to analyze Gross and had the tables turned on him. Gross was ostracized by the psychoanalytic movement and not included in histories of the psychoanalytic and psychiatric establishments. He died of pneumonia in Berlin on 13 February 1920, after being found in the street, near-starved and freezing.

Freud detected a growth in his mouth in 1923 and was advised to stop smoking cigars. He did not and developed a cancer for which he underwent unsuccessful surgery. In 1938, there were outbursts of violent antisemitism following the Anschluss of 13 March 1938 in which Germany annexed Austria. Freud and his family began their escape from the Nazis in April and May of 1938 and settled in London. The cancer spread and was painful; Freud's doctor and fellow refugee, Max Schur administered morphine that resulted in Freud's death on 23 September 1939.

Sabina Spielrein returned to Russia, trained a number of the most distinguished analysts of the new Soviet Union and finally returned to practice medicine in her native town, Rostov-on-Don. In 1941, by then a widow, she and her two daughters were taken by Nazi occupying forces to a local synagogue and shot. (according to information provided at the end of the movie right before the credits)

Carl Gustav Jung suffered a prolonged nervous breakdown during the First World War, from which he emerged to become, eventually, the world's leading psychologist. He outlived his wife, Emma, and his mistress, Toni Wolff, and died peacefully in 1961. (according to information provided at the end of the movie right before the credits)