“Illiberal Democracy” in a Central European Country

Abstract

The American election and its results in 2016 made it timely to provide a psychoanalytic analysis of the similar political events in the United States and in Hungary. Applying psychoanalytical theories to society has always been part of the tradition of the Budapest school. This paper argues that Hungarian and other transgenerational trauma theories can help us understand these developments. The author begins in using these theories to analyze the impact of political regimes on societies and individuals in Central Europe after World War II. She then continues to look at the political transformation that took place in 1989 in the socialist countries existing since 1945. This transformation promised liberation. But, this paper argues, the unexplored past resulted in the emergence of hierarchic, irrational political forces. The paper uses social and individual examples to help demonstrate these processes.

Keywords:

• Budapest School
• case vignettes
• Hungarian history
• psychoanalysis and society
• social trauma
• transgenerational.

Acknowledgments

The term “illiberal democracy” became public knowledge after it was used by the Hungarian Prime Minister in 2014 to describe the nature of the Hungarian government. This study is an extended version of a conference talk delivered at the psychoanalytic conference “Otto Fenichel and his Legacy” in Prague, October 2017. The study describes the Hungarian political situation, social processes of those days, and the resulting psychological responses. Following the election of doubtful fairness in spring 2018, the power of the then-governing party further increased; thus the events of the subsequent period affect both the explanation of past events and ways of current coping strategies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Theories by Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok. Crypt: “The unspeakable loss [trauma] creates a ‘mental crypt’ in the patient’s mind, a segment of memory, inaccessible to consciousness, that contains the memory traces (words, images, and affective responses) of the traumatizing event that induced the sepulchral chamber in the first place. Phantom: the parents’ unelaborated traumatic memories can exert a negative influence on the personality development of their children with whom they have strong emotional attachment, without the younger ones being involved in the traumatic event in any direct manner.” They originate their theory from Ferenczi’s introjection concept and the psychic changes caused by psychic traumas (Ritter, 2015, p. 49).

² I use the term “radioactive identification” or “radioactive nucleus” (Gampel, 1992, 1998b) to refer to phenomena that comprise unapprochable, nonrepresentable remnants of the memories of social violence that remain “radioactive.” These radioactive elements lie scattered about—hidden in images, nightmares, and symptoms—through which, however, they are detectable (Gampel, 1998a).

³ Robert Kulpa’s and Joanna Mizielińska’s (2011) collection of works also analyzes the hardships of ex-socialist countries joining “the West.”

⁴ Imre Hermann (1889–1984) was a dominant personality of the Budapest School. At a young age he started his career in the experimental psychological laboratory run by Géza Révész, but he was also interested in mathematics. Following this, he became a psychoanalyst. During his work he amalgamated his knowledge of natural sciences (physiology, ethology, mathematics) with psychoanalytical theories, making contributions to the original theories. Before John Bowlby, he pointed out the importance of clinging instinct and attachment in the theory of developmental psychology (Basic Human Instincts / Az ember ősi ösztönei, Budapest, 1943), and he integrated it into a psychoanalytical framework. His study “The Unconscious and the Whirlpool Theory of Instincts” is included in the collections of works compiled for Sándor Ferenczi’s 60th birthday written by his disciples. (It is regrettable that Ferenczi died 3 months before the collection was finished and published). In his 1933 study on the “whirlpool of instinct,” Hermann discussed the topic of “the curve of the unconscious and the whirlpool nature of instincts,” and he provided numerous examples from clinical practice and other disciplines. His thoughts on the nature of the unconscious are valid even today. The survival of psychoanalytical life in Hungary during the communist era is primarily owing to him. After the Psychoanalytical Association was banned from 1948 until the early 1980s, he was practically the only analyst who pursued illegal psychoanalytic therapy and training in his home. His disciples played a crucial role in reorganizing the Association (Ritter, 2001).

⁵ See Benda (1928, 1945).

⁶ A reference to the thought of Ferenczi in his clinical diary, where he wrote that during psychoanalysis, two people’s dialogue of their unconscious is also involved, and if the analyst’s childhood traumas match those of the analysand, it will affect the outcome of the therapy. Note on April 12, 1932.

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Andrea Ritter

Andrea Ritter’s PhD is in theoretical psychoanalysis. In her work, she often reaches back to the traditions of the Budapest and French psychoanalytical schools. Her main professional fields are the psychoanalytic explanations of transgenerational trauma theories and psychoanalytical approaches to various sexual orientations. She is the author of several studies, the coeditor of the anthology The Language Found: Studies of Psychoanalysts of Hungarian Origin Living in France, and the author of Gays: Unknown Acquaintances in the 21st Century: Psychological Studies. She is a lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University and has a private practice in Budapest.