Psychiatry and Sexuality

In the Replika monologue of this issue, the psychiatrist Emil Pintér tells the story of his life and career.  Pintér obtained his medical diploma in Budapest, and began to work as an assistant doctor.  Leaving Hungary in 1956, the young man settled in Switzerland, where he had to start his career anew.  Within fifteen years, he became the director of one of the biggest private sanatoriums in the country, and built out a private practice where he treated thousands of patients.  
In 1994 Pintér published the book Nähe und Distanz in der Psychotherapie on the doctor–patient relationship, and the possible therapeautic role of sexuality in psychotherapy.  The following year a vicious media campaign was launched against Pintér, who was then arrested for alleged sexual harrassment.  Although acquitted by the court, he was expelled from the Swiss Psychiatric Association, and his license to practice psychiatry was revoked.  As a result, he returned to Hungary in 1996, and now lives and works in Budapest.