This is a project for school. Subject: Fact-based journalism. Don't ask.
Father, Interpersonal Phenomenologist and Love-dealer
- Interview with Andrew Feldmár
by Eszter Farkas
October 18, 2013
Andrew
Feldmár is a greatly worshipped idol for us, Psychology students. He was born
in 1940 in Hungary and emigrated to Canada in 1956 where he has been living
since. He graduated as a Mathematician and turned to Psychology only after the
age of 25. He has worked in London and California, and has a very wide
experience in the field of Psychology. Once in a while, he comes back to
Hungary to hold presentations and share his knowledge. He has 13 books
published in Hungarian, and he is the founder or patron of two foundations, one
carrying his name (Feldmar Institute).
Honestly,
I didn’t believe he will answer to my email but not only did he answer within a
day but offered a Skype-interview for the next evening. To be sure, I prepared
two pages of questions, and was shaking and sweating when he called me on Skype
at the agreed time, 10 pm.
Hi,
András. How are you?
Hi.
Thank you for your help in this project. So
let’s start, shall we?
Yep.
My
first question would be: What is the most important to know about you? How
would you introduce yourself to someone who is curious about who Feldmár András
is? I first heard about you at the age of 14 when my peers talked about a
psychologist who cures with LSD. Then I read some of your books and visited
your presentations and conferences, there you talk a lot about love and your
mother. Who are you exactly? Are you Hungarian or Canadian?
Well, I would say I am
a Hungarian-born Canadian person. I guess, the most important role in my life
is that I am a father of two. The label that I would accept being put on me is “psychotherapist”
and according to my training I am a psychologist. However, I would rather call
myself an “Interpersonal Phenomenologist”.
That expresses the most important aspect in my approach and attitude, which is
that if someone is suffering, the problem is not in them but among them and
someone else. So the problem is among US. That is interpersonal. Not in you,
but among us. If you are suffering, someone is hurting you. Nobody suffers
without being hurt. A plant is not sick, an animal is not sick if they have
everything in their environment they need. Accordingly, if someone is not
feeling well, it is because their environment is not good. And we, as humans,
are each other’s environment. In this moment, I am your environment and you are
mine. So if you are nauseated, it is probably because I am not treating you
well and you haven’t figured it out exactly, in what ways or how. So all in
all, this is the “interpersonal” part of what I am doing; I am always
interested in ‘inter”. I utterly repudiate psychiatry and psychology which look
for the problems in you and not among us.
„I guess, the most important role in my life is that I am a father of two. The label that I would accept being put on me is “psychotherapist” and according to my training I am a psychologist. However, I would rather call myself an “Interpersonal Phenomenologist”.
The other part, “phenomenology” is about
how difficult it is to tell, describe, portray, depict, draw precisely what IS.
So phenomenology tries to tell you what is, accurately. I am not interested at
all why it is what is. To that question, people always invent a story. I do not
care about stories. So, this whole scientific approach is really useful,
obviously we accomplished a lot in the technical part; but explanations in
science are exactly like in religion; tales. And I don’t care about tales
because they are not necessary for someone to find their way if they lost it.
It doesn’t matter why they got lost, how they found themselves in prison. What
matters is that the prison door is open. And usually people say: “I’m not
coming out until I find out how I got here.” Well, that is stupid. So, that
would be my introduction.
Thank
you for that. I would like to ask something about the part “interpersonal”.
This approach explains what you always give voice to that there are no mentally
ill people, psychotics, murderers or homosexuals – that this all exists because
some people are hurt and tortured by the society. And I know I shouldn’t ask
the “why question” as you just explained, but I am still curious. Why do you
think society is like that? What can be done about this?
Well, you are asking a lot of questions.
I don’t have any problems with society. A newborn baby is already hypnotized,
their first hypnotizer is their mother, who hypnotizes them into their mother
tongue, and through that the family traditions, the regional traditions. These
are all interlocking circles which result that when a person grows up, they
have a lot of habits and traditions. And society contributes to those habits
and traditions. Even biology contributes to those habits and traditions because
our ancestors from Paleolithic shaped particular instincts to survive
particular events – that is all inside us. We have biological, social,
regional, parental, familiar hypnoses, from which, if possible, is advantageous
to wake up. You can always go back there. I don’t want to forget society. When
I want something in the society, I have to achieve that through the rules of
the society. But most people I meet are hypnotized so deeply that they forget
not to always take these rules seriously. So it is OK to play roles that
society deals out to us. Because society deals out the roles and a person
growing up can sort these and choose what or who they want to play, so that
society would let them live. And that is
alright. I also play roles. But I don’t forget that those are rules, and I am
not persistently on the stage. I need a lot of time when I am just myself and I
am not playing any roles. And the people being the closest to me are not
playing roles, either.
„Nobody suffers without being hurt.”
Those who were suffering from the
deepest depression (and I have worked with) had their condition not because
their brain was damaged or whatnot but because they got stuck into roles. They
tried to commit suicide because they couldn’t imagine any other ways to get out
of their roles without dying. So if working with me, we find loopholes and
learn that it is possible to live without particular roles, or to drop a role
and take another; the depression is instantly ceased.
And how to turn to society
depends on someone’s temperament. You have to discover your own temperament.
Actually, there are not so much choices. There are people who are patient
enough and can work within the society, or an enterprise, a school, a
university, so they can change it from the inside (democratically) for it to be
better and better. But, as I said, this requires a lot of patience. There are
people who blow up the status quo.
That also requires a particular temperament. I do not have any of these,
neither patience nor that passion. My temperament is such that I am searching
for an alternative way. Like that this is the system, and here is another
system, I find a loophole between the systems where I am let alone and can live
my alternative, generally on a small scale.
Let’s say Menedék in Budapest,
which operates for more than a year now, is an example for that alternative. It
is impossible to do it on a big scale, only 4 to 5 people are able to live
together with our help instead of being in a hospital. If we wanted to make it
bigger, it would turn into a hospital. And hospitals already exist, there is no
need for another hospital. But there isn’t any other place as Menedék. There
could be more Menedék houses here and there, for example in each district, but
it couldn’t be controlled from a center, each houses should have their own
freedom, own characteristics; here 4 to 5 people would live in a totally
different way than there. Such a house in the 2nd district would
have a different atmosphere than the same house in the 12th
district.
“In Vancouver, I inhale, and in Hungary, I exhale. This is a breathing process.”
I see. That’s an
interesting point to make. Let us turn back to your life a bit. If I am
correct, you graduated as a mathematician first, and only then turned to
psychology. Why did you choose this field?
Well, I already talked a lot about this.
Yes, I was a mathematician, I almost got my PhD at Johns Hopkins University
after Toronto University, but two of my marriages had crashed over after one
another, both after exactly three and a half years, and that devastated me. So
I visited a psychiatrist at the university. He said I should go back to Toronto
where I lived before and he gave me a name of a Canadian psychoanalyst. And I
started to visit him five times a week, I was twenty-something years old. I went there for nine months.
Among other things, we very soon figured
that all my problems happened because I lost my mother, my father and my
grandmother at the age of three and a half.
It was 1943 in Budapest, Jewish family, my mother was brought to
Auschwitz, my father to labor camp, and my grandmother to the ghetto. I would
have been killed instantly, but a young Catholic woman took me in her family
risking her life. We had to lie that my name is “Igaz” (= true) because the
woman was called Igaz Irén, so I lied in the Igaz (true) family that my name is
true (Igaz).
After one and a half years, my mother,
my father and my grandmother came back, so nobody died, but according to the
analytic, I did not even notice but unconsciously I was the one who brought
about these marriage failures so that I could repeat the thing that was such a
big surprise for me at first. Well, I found this much more interesting than
mathematics, so I started to study Psychology.
Then
primarily it was because of yourself, to be able to get to know yourself
better.
Not really. It was because I thought I
could be a better therapist than the person I visited. And the whole field was
really interesting for me. So not only because of myself. It began like that.
„I would use the media to contaminate people with the virus of love.”
In
which level are you connected to Hungary? Although, you moved to Canada at the
age of 16 of your childhood, you often come back to hold presentations, and you
manage two quite important foundations, as well. Also, there are several books
you have written in Hungarian, and you keep connection with all the Hungarian
psychologists. In what degree do you consider Hungary your home and do you
consider it to be a livable country?
Unfortunately, I don’t. The political
situation is worse than - not much worse, but worse than -elsewhere. The US
also has a growing fascism, Canada goes after it, but Hungary is way ahead.
There is something in the air at home that I don’t approve, that is that most
of the people strike their flag to demagogue leaders, they don’t ask, they
don’t want to be responsible for their own decisions, and then someone who has
a confident voice, “I know that”, is followed by the crowd without thinking.
This is not democracy. Democracy is based on the idea that the voters are
thoughtful people who are intelligent and interested in their fate. This
requires some kind of an education so they could think. But this is similar in
the US. People living on the coasts, the West and the East coast are capable of
thinking but the others between them aren’t. And because they are more than the
ones on the sides, people who don’t think lead people who do. This is the same
in Hungary.
Do
you see a future here? You support these foundations, Menedék and the others.
Do you see a positive outcome?
I come home once or twice a year to
encourage those who work in that spirit. Because they aren’t often encouraged.
Practically speaking, here in Vancouver where I live, I inhale. My practice is
based on listening. I am listening to my patients. I speak very little and I am
listening a lot. I earn money with my ear, not my mouth. When I come to
Hungary, I exhale. So this is a breathing process. I inhale in Vancouver what
people say and in Hungary I exhale all what is. And that works for me. As I
told in the beginning I consider myself Canadian, but of Hungarian origin.
And the last question
is connecting to my studies: What do think of the media? You mostly approach
your target via it; through your books, recordings, conference videos on YouTube
etc. Do you also see a negative side of it?
I am doing what I can and not raging on
something I cannot change. Words have a great power, they can be used to open
people’s heart and mind, and of course, they can be used to blind and dull
people. I would use the media to contaminate people with the virus of love. And
media is a perfect mean to contaminate people with a thought. Unfortunately,
they mostly convey stupid thoughts. In addition, media is controlled by the
government, even in Canada already. Thus, there has always been censorship,
there has always been cowardice. In my opinion, fearless media is where
revolution starts; where hope is. If the media is fearless; then democracy is
possible.
Thank
you very much for offering your time and your interview.
You’re welcome, tell me how they welcomed
your assignment. Goodbye.
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