René Laforgue

His collaboration, like Georges Mauco, with the Nazis over the Aryanisation of the society in Paris during the Occupation in World War Two cast something of a shadow over his later career.

[3] As his interest in psychoanalysis developed, he underwent a training analysis and began a correspondence with Sigmund Freud.

[5] [6] Laforgue is the author of several books on psychoanalysis, albeit more popularising than original;[7] as well as of a variety of articles on subjects ranging from the eroticization of fear in gambling,[8] through the development of the sense of reality, to such defense mechanisms as psychological repression and isolation.

Initially welcomed as a description of the blocking of unpleasant perceptions in hysteria by Freud, the latter swiftly turned against it, arguing that Laforgue himself maintained "that 'scotomization' is a term that arises from descriptions of dementia praecox, which does not arise from a carrying over of psychoanalytic concepts".

[11] Despite their theoretical disagreement, the two men remained on friendly terms, Laforgue visiting the Freuds on occasion in the 1920s: he would in the 1950s write a memoir of them, which offers a rare glimpse of Martha Freud as "a practical woman, marvellously skillful in creating an atmosphere of peace and joie de vivre".