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Psychodrama in different countries-Hungary

Country

Hungary is a country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometers in the Carpathian Basin, it borders Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Austria to the northwest, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest, and Slovenia to the west. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a medium-sized member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken Uralic language in the world.Hungary’s capital and its largest city and metropolis is Budapest.

History of Psychodrama development

Hungarian psychodrama has more than 40 years of history. It has two main roots. Historically first Ferenc Mérei, the famous Hungarian social and clinical psychologist initiated psychodrama (mainly according to his own creativity) into clinical psychology and psychiatry in the early 70-ies. His drama is group-centered. He and his students established the first official Psychodrama Working Group in the framework of the Hungarian Psychological Association in 1975.

In 1981 came for the first time the original protagonist-centered psychodrama, with the mediation of Teodóra Tomcsányi, in the framework of Moreno Institut Überlingen (lead by Gretel Leutz), trainers were: first Eszter Bánffy and mainly Ildikó Mävers. The training groups ran according to international norms (more than 1200 hrs in 7 years for one complete training). For the students of Mérei and others provided Judith Teszáry additional course protagonist-centered psychodrama training. The two groups established together the Hungarian Psychodrama Association (HPA) for 30 years (1989).

Hungarian Psychodrama Association

HPA is the only organization in Hungary providing psychodrama training and a broad psychodrama practice. It unites  all psychodramatic powers,  and represents  every directions.

The main goals of the association are the representation of psychodrama in Hungary, guarantying its conditions, promoting training programs, and facilitation of international contacts. HPA is a non-profit organization. The minimum degree for the ordinary membership is the “psychodrama assistant” qualification. A board of 10 members governs the organization including the president: Gábor Baják and vice-president: Béla Fedor. The most determining committee is the training committee with 7 senior trainers, lead by Gábor Pintér. Members of the association are forming also working groups (for example Clinical, Children Psychodrama, Bibliodrama, Research, Monodrama, Sociodrama).

Psychotherapy in Hungary is an official accepted profession. It is a medical special examination, only for doctors and psychologists (mainly built on psychiatry or clinical psychology). Psychodrama is one of the equivalent, officially accepted psychotherapy methods in Hungary. In this way one can become a “Psychotherapist”  by studying psychodrama (without a need for having other method).  In this system HPA is a fully accepted method-specific training center.

International connections

Hungarian group psychotherapists were very active in IAGP in the eighties-nineties. Gábor Szőnyi was the Hungarian delegate for a long time, later Gábor Pintér. Through this IAGP work he took part in the long grounding process of FEPTO and became a founding member, -and that time he was president of HPA. In that way HPA became a member of FEPTO at the beginning.  Gábor Pintér was also board member of FEPTO, and Hungarian delegate in the last 25 years. One very important member of HPA is Judith Teszáry; she worked/works very much for FEPTO (also as president and committee leader). Ildikó Mävers and András Vikár worked also a lot for FEPTO. In 2000 the HPA organized the FEPTO meeting in Budapest.

HPA is also a member of EAP (through the Psychotherapy Council), and is an accredited European psychotherapy training center (EAPTI).  HPA and its training activity fulfills every important professional requirements in Europe.

Main psychodrama activities in the country

We have the biggest activity in Hungary among the method-specific psychotherapy schools. We have 60 trainers, almost 300 psychodrama CP-s (certified practitioners: psychotherapists and mainly leaders) and about 800 psychodrama assistants. There are 1500-2000 people in our registered psychodrama groups in the same time.  It is running now (2018) about 130 registered groups parallel: about 110 self-experience psychodrama groups, 20 assistant or upper level training groups).  The curriculum meets FEPTO standards in frames and contents. There are 3 training branches: after the common assistant level one can learn psychodrama, child psychodrama or bibliodrama. Psychodrama is part of clinical and ambulatory psychotherapy in any hospitals and private practices. Psychodrama for children , also through Hanna Kendes training work, is very wide spread and strong , regularly used in childcare institutions, and in children psychotherapy, and bibliodrama in different churches. In the last 5 years monodrama and sociodrama are also growing quickly

HPA is the editor and publisher of the Hungarian Journal of Psychodrama published once – twice a year. HPA organizes each second year the National Psychodrama Congress. The association also organizes technique- and theme-specific workshops and workshops series for almost 30 years constantly.  Many trainers are providing courses also in abroad. We are also working with psychodrama, sociodrama and monodrama in supervision of teams, coaching, organizations-development and mediation. The “Theater of Spontaneity” is working constantly with success, having about 6 groups yet