Lawrence Schlesinger Kubie (17 March 1896– 27 October 1973) was an American
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
and
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...
who practiced in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
from 1930 to 1959.
Kubie had several celebrity patients, including
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
,
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
,
Moss Hart
Moss Hart (October 24, 1904 – December 20, 1961) was an American playwright, librettist, and theater director.
Early years
Hart was born in New York City, the son of Lillian (Solomon) and Barnett Hart, a cigar maker. He had a younger brother ...
,
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
and
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor, comedian and writer. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950†...
.
Life
After graduating from
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
in 1916, Kubie took a medical degree from
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
in 1921 and later became a Freudian psychoanalyst.
[ He was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, ]Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, the Yale School of Medicine
The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813.
The primary te ...
and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute
The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States.
The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Frede ...
, and was on the staffs of the Neurological Institute of New York
The Neurological Institute of New York, is an American hospital research center located at 710 West 168th Street at the corner of Fort Washington Avenue in the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center in the Washington ...
and Mount Sinai Hospital.
Kubie wrote two books, ''Practical and Theoretical Aspects of Psychoanalysis'' and ''Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process'', and many articles. He was the editor of ''The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
''The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal on psychopathology. It was established in 1874 as the ''Chicago Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease''. "Chicago" was dropped from the title beginning in 1876. Articl ...
.'' He was formerly president of the New York Psychoanalytic Society
The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States.
The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Frede ...
and the American Psychosomatic Society
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
, secretary of the American Psychoanalytic Association
The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) is an association of psychoanalysts in the United States. APsaA serves as a scientific and professional organization with a focus on education, research, and membership development.
APsaA comprises 3 ...
and a member of the New York Academy of Medicine
The New York Academy of Medicine (the Academy) is a health policy and advocacy organization founded in 1847 by a group of leading New York metropolitan area physicians as a voice for the medical profession in medical practice and public health ...
.
In articles of 1930 and 1941, Kubie proposed a theory of 'closed reverberating circuits' underlying neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
which was later drawn upon by Warren McCulloch
Warren Sturgis McCulloch (November 16, 1898 – September 24, 1969) was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician, known for his work on the foundation for certain brain theories and his contribution to the cybernetics movement.Ken Aizawa ( ...
, and discussed by John Z Young at the 9th Macy conference. Kubie attended the Macy conferences from 1942 to 1953. After 1941 he studied hypnosis
Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
, particularly in collaboration with Richard Brickner and Milton Erickson
Milton Hyland Erickson (5 December 1901 – 25 March 1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy. He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of ...
, and it was Kubie who invited Erickson to a Macy conference in 1942.
The playwright Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
entered analysis with Kubie in 1957. In a ''New York Review of Books
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
'' controversy about the treatment, Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...
said that many people of the time saw Kubie as 'a slick bit of goods on the make among the rich, the famous, the gullible.' Vidal charged Kubie with attempting to discourage Williams from his homosexuality,
though John Lahr
John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at ''The New Yorker''. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been ca ...
's biography of Williams disputes the claim.[Jennifer Schuessler]
A Playwright Named Desire: The Battle for Art and Sanity
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', September 1, 2014.
Kubie died on October 27, 1973 in Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
.
Partial list of publications
* A Theoretical Application to Some Neurological Problems of the Properties of Excitation Waves Which Move in Closed Circuits, ''Brain'' 53(2): 166-177, 1930.
* « Repetitive Core of Neuroses », in ''Psychoanal. Quart.'', 1941
* « The use of induced hypnagogic reveries in the recovery of repressed amnesic data », in ''Bull Menninger Clin, 7'', 1943
* « Communication between sane and insane : Hypnosis » in ''Cybernetics: Transactions of the Eighth Conference; Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation'', New York (Heinz von Foerster, Margaret Mead, Hans Lukas Teuber), 1952
* « Psychiatric and psychoanalytic considerations of the problem of consciousness » in J.F. Delafresnay (dir.) ''Brain mechanisms and consciousness, a symposium'', Springfield, 1954
*''Neurotic distortion of the creative process'', New York : Noonday Press, 1958
* « L'hypnotisme. Terrain de choix pour les recherches psychophysiologiques et psychanalytiques » in ''Arch. gen. Psychiat.'', 1961, repris dans ''Rev. Ned. Psychosom.'', 1963
* « Theoretical aspects od sensory deprivation » in P. Solomon (dir.) ''Sensory deprivation: A symposium held at Harvard Medical School'', 1961
* « The concept of dream deprivation : A critical analysis », ''Psychosom. Med.'', 1962
* « Missing and wanted : Heterodoxy in psychiatry and psychoanalysis : Editorial », ''J. nerv. ment. Dis.'', 1963
* « The relation of psychotic disorganization to the neurotic process », ''L. Amer. psychoanal. Ass.'', 1967
* « The nature of psychological change and its relation to cultural change », in B. Rothblatt (dir.), ''Changing perspectives on man'', Chicago, 1968
* « Multiple fallacies in the concept of schizophrenia », ''J. nerv. ment. Dis.'', 1971
* (fr)« L'illusion et la réalité dans l'étude du sommeil, de l'hypnose, de la psychose et du réveil », in ''The international Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis'', 1972, repris dans ''Revue médicale psychosomatique'', 2, 1976 et dans Léon Chertok (dir) ''Résurgence de l'Hypnose: une bataille de deux cents ans'', 1984
With Milton H. Erickson
* « The use of automatic drawing in the interpretation and relief of a state of acute obsessional depression », ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'', 7, 1938, p. 443-466
* « The permanent relief of an obsessional phobia by means of communications with an unsuspected dual personality », ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'', 8, 1939, p. 471-509
* « The translation of the cryptic automatic writing of one hypnotic subject by another in a trance-like dissociated state », ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'', 9, 1940, p. 51-63
* « The successful treatment of a case of acute hysterical depression by a return under hypnosis to a critical phase of childhood », ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'', 10, 1941, p. 583-609
With Sydney G. Margolin
* (fr) « A physiological method for the induction of states of partial sleep, and securing free association and early memories in such states », ''Trans. Amer. Neurol. Ass.'', 68, 1942, p. 136-139
* « An apparatus for the use of breath sounds as a hypnagogic stimulus », ''American journal of psychiatry'', 100, 1944, p. 610
* « The process of hypnotism and the nature of the hypnotic state », ''American journal of psychiatry'', 100, 1944, p. 611-
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Lawrence S. Kubie Papers: a finding aid to the collection in the Library of Congress
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kubie, Lawrence
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni
Columbia Medical School faculty
Yale School of Medicine faculty
Harvard College alumni
American psychiatrists
American psychoanalysts
1896 births
1973 deaths
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease editors