Born on January 7, 1911, in Bilbao (Spanish Basque Country). Died in Villefranque, near Bayonne, on March 23, 1993.
Born into a rural Spanish Basque family, he attended school in Deusto, near Bilbao, at the Brothers of the Christian Schools, and later at high school. He learned French during summer vacations before moving to Paris at the age of 16. In 1945, he married France Alberti, of Corsican origin, with whom he had two children: Mikel (born in 1948) and Isabelle (born in 1953).
Education and Professional Career
- 1927–1933: Studied medicine in Paris. Lived in a dormitory for Catholic students on Rue Madame.
- 1930: Clinical intern at Paris hospitals.
- 1933–1936: He passed the competitive exam for residency at the Psychiatric Hospitals of the Seine and served as a resident at Sainte-Anne
- 1933–1950: Status as a foreign physician. As such, he was provided room and board at the hospital but received no pay, which forced him to work as a substitute nurse (a practice that would be prohibited at the start of the war by a decree issued by Pétain) and to give lectures as part of the residency program. He studied under André-Thomas, Jean Lhermitte, Paul Guiraud, Louis Marchand, Henri Claude, Pierre Janet, Gaëtan de Clérambault, and others, and rubbed shoulders with intellectuals and artists—many of them Surrealists—such as Dominguez, Éluard, Buñuel, Breton, and others, who gathered regularly in the on-call room at Sainte-Anne Hospital. At the same time, he continued his medical studies in Spain, where he took exams during the September session at the University of Valladolid and later at the University of Salamanca; however, he was unable to take the final exams due to the civil war.
- 1936: Doctorate in medicine, thesis: “Pain in Disorders of the Central Nervous System,” with a preface by Jean Lhermitte
- 1938–1946: Assistant to Jean Lhermitte at the Laboratory of Nervous System Anatomy.
- Collaborator with André-Thomas at Saint Joseph Hospital and Port-Royal Hospital
- Consulting physician at Henri Rousselle Hospital (Sainte Anne Hospital Complex)
- Active member of the “Batia” group, which pioneered the “sectorization” of psychiatry in France
- 1942–1945: Member of the Resistance
- 1946: Appointed associate professor of neurology and psychiatry, as a foreign national
- 1946–1959: Together with René Diatkine, he established a “Research and Rehabilitation Team for Psychomotor and Language Disorders” at Henri Rousselle Hospital, which was later taken over by Jean Bergès
- Consulting physician in child neuropsychiatry at the Neurosurgical Center of the Seine Psychiatric Hospitals. There, he founded and directed a laboratory of pathological anatomy with David, Lhermitte, and Talairach
- 1948: Stayed in Belgium with Hécaen at Professor Van Bogaert’s Bunge Institute in Antwerp
- 1949–1952: He underwent didactic analysis with Sacha Nacht
- 1950: After obtaining French citizenship, he passed the French baccalaureate and had his prior medical studies recognized
- 1950–1959: Research Fellow at the National Institute of Hygiene (which became INSERM in 1963)
- 1954: Doctorat d’État in medicine
- Founded the journal *La Psychiatrie de l’enfant* with R. Diatkine, S. Lebovici, and R. Crémieux
- 1959–1975: Holder of the Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Geneva, a position left vacant by the death of Prof. Ferdinand Morel. René Tissot would succeed him in this role. He also co-directed the Bel-Air University Psychiatric Clinic in Chêne-Bourg.
- 1975–1981: Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of Developmental Neuropsychology
- 1978: Led the psychiatric care program implemented in Spain by the Minister of Health
- 1983–1984: Adjunct Professor at the University of the Basque Country
- 1982–1986: Led a “Research Team on the Neuropsychological Development of Infants” composed of Auzias, Casati, Candilis Kheroua, Robin, and Séchan, based at the municipal daycare center on Rue Cabanis, at the entrance to Sainte-Anne Hospital
- 1983–1984: Taught in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of the Basque Country
Scholarly Societies and Academies
- 1980–1986: Foreign Corresponding Member of the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina in Madrid
Awards and Honors
- 1938: Déjerine Prize for his work on experimental polyneuritis, under the supervision of Jean Lhermitte
- 1974: City of Geneva Science Prize
- 1978: Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Basque Country/Euskadi
- 1982: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Barcelona