Epileptic Patients as Criminals: Early Forensic Psychology in Hungary

The aim of the paper is to outline and interpret the evolution of early forensic psychology and criminal psychology in Hungary by focusing on the notion of criminal responsibility. The question of criminal responsibility was in the core of early forensic psychology in Hungary. Prominent representatives of early forensic psychology and psychiatry such as Erno Moravcsik, Pál Ranschburg, Károly Schaffer or Ödön Német developed several promising theories on the roots, diagnostic challenges and understanding of criminal behaviour. In these early years, biological and constitutional approaches were rather determining in the understanding of criminal behaviour. As a result of this, mental retardation, the disturbances of motivation and emotions, the notion of moral insanity and several different psychopathologies – such as hysteria, psychosis or epilepsy - were identified as the roots of criminal behaviour or antisocial personality. Interestingly, the diagnostic category of epilepsy was one of the most investigated disorders of forensic psychology in Hungary. The possible subsidiary symptoms of epilepsy (e.g. temporary confusion, poriomania and increased aggression) proved to be determining in the contemporary forensic psychological theories of epilepsy and called attention to the problematic social and legal status of epileptic criminals. In the 1930s Lipót (Leopold) Szondi elaborated a comprehensive theory on “fate-analysis”, in which the concept of epilepsy gained central significance. The aim of the paper is to illuminate the role of the theories of epilepsy in this context and understand the relationship between constitutional approaches and social inequality by analyzing the debate on criminal responsibility in Hungary.