He spent time at a number of medical schools—in Neuchâtel, Zurich, and Bern in Switzerland and Berlin in Germany— completing his studies in Zurich after five years. While taking courses in Zurich, he had been a top student of Eugene Bleuler and had worked in the university hospital's psychiatric ward. Continuing to pursue his interest in psychiatry, he undertook a residency at a mental institution in Munsterlingen, Switzerland, in 1909