The person-centred approach in Hungary
Magda Draskóczy
Psychology in Hungary was a neglected, even forbidden discipline between 1949 and 1957. Psychologists, psychotherapists who had been trained before the war were practising, but education of new psychologists were stopped at the universities. The situation changed somewhat after the revolution in 1956, education of psychologists started at one university, and small workshops were formed in some hospitals and in private homes where psychotherapy training started in the early sixties. It was mainly psychoanalytically oriented, dynamic psychotherapy, conducted by psychiatrists and psychologists that belonged to the psychoanalytic school of Budapest before the war. Carl Rogers and his ideas were known only by some scholars that time, as the possibility to keep professional contacts abroad was also rather limited.
The first publication in Hungarian that made Rogers’ ideas, first of all empathy, widely known was Béla Buda’s book on empathy (1) in 1978 that described the development of empathy as well as its application in different human relationships, education, therapy, working relationships, etc. Then, in the early 80-s, in a collection of papers on psychotherapy (2) client-centred psychotherapy was already represented by one article from Carl Rogers and one from Reinhard Tausch.
László Tringer, who is now professor of psychiatry at the Medical University in Budapest, found contact in the middle of seventies with the Humboldt University’s Psychology Department where Professor Helm and his team conducted research on client-centred therapy. After having finished his training in ‘Gesprhächspsychotherapie’, he started a training program in Hungary in 1981. Professor Tringer’s book on client-centred therapy (3) is a basic Hungarian handbook for students who learn client-centred therapy, although its way of presenting the topic is strongly influenced by the cognitive approach.
An other, quite independent possibility for meeting the person-centred approach and personally Carl Rogers emerged in 1983 when Sándor Klein invited some person-centred professionals from the USA. The next year the Hungarian Psychological Association invited the Person-Centred Approach Institute International to organise its yearly Cross-Cultural Communication Workshop in Szeged. It was the first time that this big international meeting of person-centred people met behind the iron curtain, and the first occasion for psychologists, psychiatrists and lay people from Hungary and the other ‘socialist countries’ to meet in the open, personal way that the person-centred approach offered. There were about 150 people from Hungary and about the same number from abroad participating. The meeting was such a big success that the Cross-Cultural Communication Workshop was again held in Szeged in 1986. It was the last such workshop where Carl Rogers took part personally before his death in 1987. There was one more Cross-Cultural Communication Workshop in Hungary, it was organised by Mihály Elekes in Tata 1993.
The personal relationships that were built during the cross-cultural workshops meant partly that people in Hungary, who found that the person-centred approach was close to their way of working, found each other, and small teams started to work in the PCA spirit in education, therapy and in other working environments. It also opened the possibility for some people to join the person-centred training program that was offered by the Person-Centred Approach Institute International, a European training centre founded by C. Rogers, Ch. Devonshire and A. Zucconi. Thirty-five Hungarian psychologists, psychiatrists and other helping professionals finished the three years, 1000 hours training program in France between 1985 and 1993.
Person-centred psychotherapy
The person-centred approach is accepted in Hungary as one of the schools of psychotherapy in which medical doctors and psychologists can get the title of psychotherapist after extended training and exam. It is one of the many branches of psychotherapy that is practised in Hungary, but many people from the psychiatric establishment look upon the approach as one that provides basic non-specific conditions, but which does not provide specific solutions to specific diagnostic categories.
Many psychologists and psychiatrists practise person-centred psychotherapy as their basic approach in different settings, in hospitals, in ambulatory clinics, and in private practice, both with adults and with children of different age. Some others look upon it as a valuable basis, and combine it with other psychotherapeutic techniques, such as psychodrama, cognitive methods, etc. The person-centred approach is present not only in psychotherapy but also in some social institutions as the basic approach for helping relationships, such as in homes for elderly people, shelter for battered women and their children, institutes for chronic mental patients, etc.
Student-centred schools
There are two schools in Hungary for children of age between 6 and 18 years that declare themselves being student-centred. One of them is the Rogers Person-Centred School in Budapest (4), that was founded in 1990, right after the change of the political system in Hungary, and the other one is the “Colourful School” in Tata. In both of them, the way of being with the students is based on Rogers’ ideas on the ‘freedom to learn’, but there is also a struggle in both of them to find a balance between the “freedom to learn” and the demands of the educational system. Both schools provide an integrated education for children of families that highly value the freedom of such an institution, and children who failed in the traditional schools for some reason, and came here to find a more tolerant atmosphere.
Training
There are two kinds of training program running parallel in Hungary according to the two different sources of inspiration and education that people got on the person-centred approach. The training program of the Hungarian Association for Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Mental Hygiene is acknowledged by the National Council of Psychotherapy as part of the general psychotherapist training. The admission requirement is university degree in some of the helping professions (medical doctor, psychologist, teacher, etc.) The training consists of 450 hours (self-development in group: 150 hours: theory 50 hours: group members‘ mutual counselling: 50 hours: therapy with clients : 100 hours and supervision: 100 hours) At the end of the training process a case study has to be submitted, and a theoretical exam made. For people without a university degree, who are working in helping professions, a person-centred counsellor training is offered. The training is the same as the person-centred therapist training but without the obligation to write a case study. This training program was started in the mid-eighties and about 150 people finished it by now.
The other training program was started in 1993 by Mihály Elekes under the umbrella of the Person-Centred Approach Institute International. This program is more experiential, it is based on the principles of the Institute and Carl Rogers’ approach to the freedom to learn. It consists of 1000 hours in a period of three years, during which the group members decide on the topics they want to deal with, and the means of learning, too. There are 7 ‘intensive sessions’ of 10 days and about 12 weekend sessions during the three years. The main emphasis during this training is on personal development and experiential learning of the basic conditions of the person-centred approach.
The person-centred approach in higher education
Some psychologists, trained and working in the person-centred approach, are now involved in the education of different helping professionals (psychologists, social workers, teachers, etc.) at universities. They apply the person-centred approach not only generally in their work with students, but managed to introduce topics, such as encounter groups with the aim to promote self-development, skills and attitudes for helping relationships, learning empathy, and supervision in a person-centred way. Post-gradual courses on mental hygiene for helping professionals started in Hungary in 1990, and now they are running in three different universities, and in two of them the person-centred approach is one of the basic theoretical foundations.
The person-centred approach is also strongly represented in the post-graduate course for psychologists on clinical psychology. Client-centred therapy is the psychotherapeutic method they learn first as the basic therapeutic approach, and it is one of the methods offered for them as the way of supervision, too.
Focusing
E. Gendlin’s book on focusing was published in Hungary in 1989, and many people read it and tried focusing. A better organised training and application of focusing started when a group got a focusing training in the Netherlands in the mid-nineties, and then trainers came to Hungary from the Netherlands and started a training program here, together with Hungarian colleagues. Several shorter and longer focusing courses were run since, and many people apply focusing in therapy and also with children in schools and pre-schools, in child guidance clinics and in other settings, e.g. as a preparation for natural childbirth.
Gordon training
Zsuzsa Várkonyi, a Hungarian psychologist found contact with the Gordon Institute in the USA in the mid-eighties, and started Gordon-training in 1987 in Hungary. By now Thomas Gordon’s basic training books for parents, teachers, leaders, etc. are published in Hungarian. The Hungarian Gordon Institute, which was founded in 1990, provided training for nearly 30 000 people. Now they offer parent effectiveness training, training on adult relationships, effectiveness training for women, for young people and for couples expecting baby. Some training courses are accredited i.e. those who participate are financially supported by their employers, such courses are running for teachers, kindergarten teachers, social workers, civil servants, etc.
Person-centred association
The Hungarian Association for Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Mental Hygiene was founded in 1987, first as a working group within the Hungarian Psychiatric Association, and later on as an association. Originally it represented the group of person-centred therapists trained in the German tradition, and there was a separate association for the other group, trained by the Person-Centred Approach Institute International in France. Now the Hungarian Association for Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Mental Hygiene is the only active association, which unites people from both traditions. One important step in the way was, when 2 years ago the association provided opportunity for those trained by the PCAII to make their training accepted in Hungary.
The association now has about 100 active members. We have one week-end workshop every year which provides opportunity both for encounter to our members, and some theoretical discussions and/or practical demonstrations. Now we try to widen the opportunity for meeting face to face, we have a so called person-centred club where people can meet one evening every month and can discuss personal, professional, theoretical, etc. matters. We also invite our foreign friends to our club, if they happen to be in Hungary. The association is member in the Network of the European Associations for Person-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counselling (NEAPCEPC)
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