LEUBA, JOHN (1884-1952)

A doctor in the natural sciences and medicine, a psychoanalyst, and a member of the Société psychanalytique de Paris (SPP; Paris Psychoanalytical Society) from 1932, John Leuba was born in Corcelles, Switzlerland, near Neuchâtel, in 1884; he died there on May 11, 1952.

Leuba's father, a pharmacist in Corcelles, inspired his interest in the natural sciences. At the end of his studies he turned his focus to geology. In Neuchâtel he became assistant to Professor Schardt, whose daughter he married several years later.

After an illness of unknown origin, Leuba earned his medical degree in Geneva. During the First World War he was a volunteer in hospitals in France. In 1925 he went to Paris and worked for the publishing house Armand Colin, which published his Introductionà la géologie (Introduction to geology) in 1925.

During the period from 1928 to 1930, he became a doctor in the faculty of medicine in Paris. He went into analysis with Rudolph Löwenstein and worked under the supervision of René Laforgue. He was secretary of the Société psychanalytique de Paris from 1934, and served as its president from 1946 to 1948.

Leuba was an artist with a genuine talent for drawing, and he excelled in his case descriptions. Not much inclined toward theory, he devoted his best efforts to clinical observation. His articles were published in the Revue française de psychanalyse ; "Analyse rapide d'un névrose d'angoisseà base de complex de castration" (Summary analysis of an anxiety neurosis based on the castration complex) and "La pensée magique chez le névrosé" (Magical thinking in neurotics) exemplify his qualities as a clinician. In 1936, at the Ninth Conference of French-Speaking Psychoanalysts in Nyon, he delivered a paper entitled "La famille névrotique et les névroses familiales" (The neurotic family and family neuroses), in which he asked the question: "Are there such things as Catholic neuroses, Protestant neuroses, and Jewish neuroses?"

He was part of the "Club des piqués" gathered around Laforgue in the Midi. In a poem dedicated to Délia Laforgue, he expressed his enthusiasm for wine, wild times, and pleasures shared among true friends, "the truest of the true."

The second volume of the Revue française de psychanalyse (1939) contained his article, "Batrachomyomachie: Document pour la défense et illustration du thème oedipien" (Batrachomyomachia: Document for the defense and illustration of the oedipal theme), but because of the war this issue was not released and the article appeared only in 1948. This strange article begins as follows: "For as long as I can remember, I have always felt a singular tenderness toward toads." Childhood memories and fantasies are blended together into a narrative without any psychoanalytic analysis.

He continued his clinical practice in Paris during the war, serving at the same time as a volunteer doctor in the emergency ward at the municipal building of the 16th arrondissement. In 1945 he accused Laforgue of having collaborated with the Nazis. His denunciation resulted in a trial, but the case was dismissed for lack of proof.

Francis Pasche, during the Occupation, and, later, Jean Favreau and Pierre Luquet did their training analyses with Leuba. At Leuba's funeral, Charles Odier described him as having lived in the physical and the human, and not in the metaphysical.

Jean-Pierre Bourgeron

See also: Belgium; France; Magical thought; Revue française c de psychanalyse ; Société psychanalytique de Paris et Institut de psychanalyse de Paris.

Bibliography

Leuba, John. (1934). Compte rendu VIII Conférence des psychanalystes de langue francaise. Revue française de psychanalyse, 7, 116-136.

——. (1936). La famille névrotique et les névroses familiales. Revue française de psychanalyse. 9 (3), 360-419.

——. (1939). Batrachomyomachie: Document pour la défense et illustration du thème oedipien. Revue française de psychanalyse, 12 (1), 55-79.