Hungarian psychologist Jenõ Ranschburg dies at 75

A household name in Hungary, Jenõ Ranschburg was a psychologist who worked for the family. His reputation is due to a popular science TV series ‘Family Circle’ (Családi kör), broadcast for decades, making him a beloved member of every family who watched that series.

He has done a lot for children and it would not be to say too much that he was an apostle of family values, he was knowledgeable, nonjudgmental, a person of high moral standing, serious, calm, loving. Apart from being a tireless researcher and scientist, public figure, and professor, he was a wonderful presenter remembered by many of his students and was respected early on as a teacher and considered a real guide among misfortunes. He did not refrain from looking at both low and high spheres of life, saw the whole picture of humans and was not deterred.

Apart from honor and knowledge, loyalty would be the next word that attempts to tell what he actually was. A man of three children and faithful husband, who without priggishness, out of his personal conviction had a clear sense of what is right – faithful and loyal in all his relations. In the controversial case involving Ágnes Geréb, the midwife who was held in custody for allegedly threatening the lives of a mother and her baby when delivering a child outside of hospital, Ranschburg took the midwife's side. His stance made a great impression on the opponents of allowing child birth at home.

His innumerable books could integrate that is useful and was able to deliver his knowledge to others in most memorable ways. He tried to dissolve rigid, paralyzing dysfunctional rules to allow us to reinvoke a sense of proportion, to get back humanistic values into the center, and more importantly, the focus on the other. It was not done by hollow preaching that anyone should break up with infernal selfishness. Instead, he showed the way. Under his clear and watchful gaze, many of us felt uncomfortable because I myself understood more of what we are and where we should be heading. From this, some painful recognition follow and one of them is that we still need him. We all know he was ready to go. We were not ready.