Citation

Zsédel K, Gerevich J. Psychiatr. Hung. 2015; 30(2): 210-221.

Affiliation

Karoli Gaspar Reformatus Egyetem Pszichologiai Intezet, Budapest, Hungary, E-mail: gerevic@t-online.hu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Magyar Pszichiatriai Tarsasag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

26202624

Abstract

Although recently many studies have indicated close connection between aggressive behaviour and suicide, and we can infer at Attila Jozsef's high trait-aggression from several cases, there is no research so far that would analyse the topic of the poet's aggression. We examine in this study the high trait-aggression and conscious poetic attitude of Attila Jozsef and put the question how could those two contribute to his suicide. Recollections of Attila Jozsef's contemporaries reveal that the poet's life was accompanied along with auto- and heteroaggression. By analysing his Rorschach-test, we can also conclude on the weakness of his aggression-control. During his psychoanalytic treatment from 1931 on, some difficult memories and unacceptable desires became revoked, and his aggressive outbreaks became unmanageable, first of all against some females in his life. His free-association works from this period are full of rude, incestuous, aggressive expressions. In spite of these, there is no trace of aggression in his poems - he masks his aggression in them by keeping precisely to formal criteria. We suppose that behind the masking there are unconscious processes, such as a very strong desire to get attached and fear of solitude that led to his aspiration to consciously form "the myth of the good poet". Art's healing power could not prevail as the spontaneous creative process has been turned into a conscious one. His impulses that came to light in the analytic process and were only partly sublime may have returned thus and became urgent and pressing again. We suppose that his high trait-aggression and his conscious poetic attitude together contributed to his life's tragic ending.

Language: hu