The political authorities were afraid of psychology! ” – Emőke Bagdy and her colleagues were all monitored

– Did psychology start to pick up before the regime change or were all efforts thwarted?
– To answer that question, we must journey back into the history of the profession. We need to go back to the period following 1945. Before the war, there were renowned psychology workshops operating in Hungary. There were psychoanalysts, research medical psychologists such as the famous Lipót Szondi, and academic psychologists, many of whom, becoming persecuted and in fear of their lives, had to emigrate to save themselves. After the great losses, it was difficult to create a chance for the profession to survive.

Psychology was able to quietly evolve in Lipótmező, in the then ‘National Institute of Neurology and Mental Medicine’.

In 1948, István Benedek ((grandson of Elek Benedek: the editor), who had earlier pursued instinctive diagnostic research as a colleague of Lipót Szondi, founded a psychology laboratory. Several of the psychoanalysts found refuge there. In 1951, the political leadership broke up the evolving psychological activities, removed the staff, and the psychology laboratory was closed. Following the Soviet scientific debates, the infamous Rákosi era made a heavy attack on psychological pedagogy, i.e., ‘pedology’, in Hungary too; psychology was expelled from the system of sciences as a ‘bourgeois pseudoscience’ in our country, too.

– Did they not believe in it or did they fear it?
– Clearly, they feared it! Under the communist regime, the authorities needed people who were loyal to the system, who did not think for themselves. At the time, it was not the clinical field that was under attack, as it barely existed, but the pedological trend which is, practically, a breath of psychology in educational work, to not only educate but also shape personality, and to educate free-spirited, free-thinking, autonomous persons. The communist dictatorship feared autonomous thinking, thus they made psychology impossible, alongside many other things. A Hungarian pedologist Ferenc Mérei was also condemned. The use of the tests was prohibited. The profession of ‘psychologist’ became redundant and its activities were persecuted.

Until 1956, the proletarian dictatorship was in a state of ‘rage’.

– Could we say that the representatives of the profession were persecuted?
– Silencing, prohibition and the quasi-destruction of psychology resulted in a state of suspended animation. Well-known professionals had to leave their original professions, Magda Marton, for example, being switched to air purity research with animal experiments. By 1956, very few traces of the profession’s operation remained, which can also be laid at the door of the servants of the system. 1956 was the era of revolution, of the great reorganisation. It was followed by Kádár's soft dictatorship, in which spiritual life was determined by the principles of ‘prohibition, tolerance, support’. It was then that psychology began to wake from its coma. It was rehabilitated as a science in 1958 and began to be taught in universities. Then, in 1963, applied psychology training was launched. From then on, a wonderful, flowering process began, which I would describe as the psychological history era of the ‘shining breezes’. Enthusiasm, activity, voluntary service and the construction of the profession began. The clinical field was reborn, though again only in Lipótmező.

– When did you become an active participant and influencer of that process?
– Practical psychology, which puts psychological knowledge at the service of people, was revived in 1963. I hadn’t been admitted to university before because of my origins, which in the end brought me luck as I was among the first to graduate in the clinical field.

In 1964, Ferenc Mérei founded the laboratory on the second floor room of the National Institute of Neurology and Mental Medicine, which then became the cradle of Hungarian clinical psychology training.

We had to go to him for practice because he was forbidden to teach at a university as he had been to prison. We all looked up to him! He was constantly doing creative work. It is typical of the man that, while in prison, by the light of a torch and using a pencil stub, he wrote the four volumes of the ‘Psychological Journal’ that, when released spread as an underground publication at the time of the ban. Mérei was a real master, he taught everything with absolute care, while also improving his own professional personality.

– How did it feel to graduate among the first in this study programme? How do you get a job in an field in which the infrastructure had not yet even properly formed?
– After graduation, we began to infiltrate into areas of practice, though our employers had no idea about what kind of creature a psychologist was. Therefore, initially, some unworthy situations did arise. Sometimes we even sent with the patients to sweep the yard! We had to prove that we had a great deal of knowledge and were beneficial to health care. By 1977, we managed to gain the first professional decree, the Decree of the Minister of Health 38/1977 (Eü.K 25), which defined the psychologist. For the ten years between 1974 and 1984, ‘Psychotherapy Weekends’ were run and psychotherapists and psychologists worked together to teach psychotherapy theory and practice. In 1980, the ‘Hungarian Psychological Association’ was established as a separate entity independent from neurology. Independence helped us too, to flourish. The ‘Clinical Psychology Section’ was established, including the methodology working groups which were the forerunners of the later associations. At that time, Lipótmező, as the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, was also the centre and ‘citadel.’ From the very beginning, we undertook things there that are unthinkable today.

– What kind of things?
– We reproduced important, new and, till then, missing psycho-diagnostic materials and standardized tests, and disseminated practical tools and methods. I gave birth to my twins in 1969, but did not give up my professional job. I was in such a fortunate position that my husband and I took turns helping each other in our professional and scientific work so, if I had an important task, he took on my mother role, and vice versa. My colleagues and I knew that we were under secret police surveillance and that files were being kept on us. For example, informants came to Psychotherapy Weekends and reported on us.

They wanted to check that we were not organizing any kind of political movement under the pretext of psychological gatherings.

– Were there any regulations in place before the change of regime that set a framework for psychologists?
– As I have said, by the ’70s, we gained a decree which defined the profession of ‘psychologist’. That determined who could call themselves a psychologist and the activities their qualifications entitled them to perform. Over twenty years we achieved everything important for the development of a profession: we had a basic decree, a professional training decree, a Chamber, a Vocational College - and then, in 1989, all decrees were repealed and everything was re-regulated, only they forgot about us!

Whatever government there has been since the change of regime, each has rejected our most basic request: to this day, there is no public record of who is a psychologist.

We are even unable to create a simple contact list because there is no accessible database of graduate psychologists. We have been fighting for our own Chamber since 1989, but last year we had had enough and gave up the fight.

– Who has no interest in psychologists having a strong advocacy organisation?
– Governments came and went, and we fought tirelessly to have a Chamber, but in the end, someone always stopped us. We once got to the point where a draft bill was submitted to Parliament, but it was withdrawn at the last minute. Numerous lawyers and professionals have worked hard for it, and we have no idea who decided the night before that there would be no debate on something that had already been approved at the cabinet meeting. For years, within our profession we all assured each other that there would be a chamber law, there would be a register, there would be regulation and we would finally know who could call themselves a psychologist. We have been hoping for years, since even hunters or, e.g., herbalists can have a Chamber - so why cannot fifteen thousand psychologists have one? There is some clear development within the boundaries of psychology, scientific discoveries have been made, we have put a lot into practice and we really have no reason to be shy - but why are we not allowed to regulate?

– Are there too many self-appointed psychologists giving advice?
– Since 1995, coaching has also reached us, fast-track courses are held in many areas, and the market has been flooded with dubiously accredited training courses.

There are many people in their forties who are in a mid-life crisis, tired of working in their own profession, who take a coaching course, and then later make money with it. They try to be smart without having any idea about things!

They advise, while the essence of psychology is that you help when you can help shed light on that which is inside the other person. If they are anxious, you reduce their anxiety, release their mind and help them find their own strength. I do not criticize the title because there is also accredited university coach training, there are postgraduate trained mental health professionals and university graduate kinesiologists. There are really good courses, but their trainees cannot pursue the same activity as a qualified psychologist.

– Does that mean that no one checks the background knowledge someone who is performing psychologist tasks?
– Nobody checks anything. Maybe they ask for the degree in order to set the pay grade. Although there are no positions in the clinic, still, the clinical specialization is the most regulated, though much more would be needed! We have no interest representation, no title and no field definition. There is no control over who can put up a sign on their door that they are doing psychology consultations, because there is no regulation to refer to. The person may say,“Please, I’m not doing therapy, I’m teaching psychology!” and just continue the activity. It is incredible how many fake psychologists are operating! When development accelerates, it works like a river, depositing sediment on the shore. This is a time when there is a lot of sediment and a clean-up is extremely necessary!

What continually strive for is the protection of clients who are unsuspecting and act in good faith, as the reputation of the entire profession can be damaged by a self-appointed, pseudo-professional. I dare not even mention the black economy!

– You often mention your masters, Ferenc Mérei, Lívia Nemes, the successor teachers of Szondi and many other famous Hungarian professionals. What role do masters play in the cleansing process? Can someone become a good psychologist if they have not had an authority in their life to show all that cannot be learned from e-learning?
– The model, the master is very important! We live in a culture where the ideal image of man is very loose and authority is lost. Today we live in an age of eternal youth where the trend is to not grow old. The world has become very materialistic and qualities, i.e., social and emotional factors, are forced into the background. Too much emphasis is placed upon the material axis, while the vertical, spiritual dimension, where I can place only the ‘quality’ of people, continues to shrink. In recent years, I have not been very positive about the situation in the profession. I serve in silence, I do what I am able. It hurts that there is enormous destruction of prestige and, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like any change of direction is  going to occur in the near future.