Zdeněk Matějček

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Zdeněk Matějček (born August 16, 1922 in Chlumec nad Cidlinou , † October 26, 2004 in Prague ) was a Czech child psychologist and researcher . He is considered the founder of the Czech School of Child Psychology and has examined the developmental conditions of children and their consequences in various settings well into adulthood in important long-term studies. The term psychological deprivation was coined by him.

Life

Kladruby nad Labem Castle Stud

Matějček grew up as the director's son at the national stud farm Kladruby nad Labem , where he lived until adulthood with his parents and younger brother. After graduating from secondary school in Pardubice , he was unable to study because of the Second World War . That is why he worked in his father's stud as a farm worker and later at Baťa in Zlín .

After the war, Matějček studied philosophy (psychology was included at the time) and literature at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague from 1945 to 1949 . The seizure of power by the Communist Party ( KSČ ) in 1948 thwarted his original plans to become a teacher and he turned to psychology. From 1950 to 1951 he did a psychology internship at the Good Shepherd educational institution . In 1951 he received a doctorate in philosophy. From 1951 to 1969 he worked at the Prague Institute for Social Pedagogy , which was renamed the Children's Psychiatric Clinic in 1953 . It dealt with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders and developmental deficiencies in children in infant and orphanages. Together with Joseph Langmeier , he researched the psychological needs of children and their problems. They defined a new psychological concept about mental deprivation. The results of their studies were published in the book Emotional Deprivation in Childhood . It quickly became known at home and abroad, where the book was translated into English, German and Russian.

From 1969 to 1990 (from 1977 as assistant professor), Matějček taught at the Institute for Advanced Training for Doctors and Pharmacists in the pediatric department of the ILF. Here he met Joseph Langmeier again. Together they decided to found the Prague School of Clinical Psychology . At the same time, Matějček taught clinical psychology from 1959 to 1977 at the Faculty of Psychology at Charles University in Prague and conducted psychological consultations. He was only awarded the title of professor in 1995 - after the fall of the Berlin Wall. To emphasize the importance of developmental psychology , he established the Professor Matějček Foundation in the 1990s , which honored the best dissertations in the field of developmental psychology. His reputation as a psychological capacity led to numerous publications and lectures at home and abroad. Matějček was a co-founder of the SOS Children's Villages . In 1990 and 1991 he was President of the Czechoslovak Committee of UNICEF .

From 1991 until his death, Matějček worked as a researcher at the Prague Center for Psychiatry and, since 1994, at the Center for Children PAPRSEK in Prague. In addition, he created new diagnostic tools and adapted the Gessellovy and other methods for children. He was a member of numerous professional associations in the Czech Republic (Czech Medical Academy, Czech-Moravian Society for Psychology, etc.) and abroad (International Dyslexia Association, International Study Group for Children with Special Educational Needs, etc.). Matějček was a regular guest speaker at the developmental psychological congresses, co- organized annually by the Theodor Hellbrügge Foundation, on questions of the importance of relationships and attachment for child development.

plant

In his long-term observations on children, Matějček dealt with the question of the basic conditions for their healthy emotional development. He specifically examined children who - as was common in the Eastern Bloc at the time - spent a large part of the day in collective educational institutions. Matějček found that some of these children had serious psychological disorders, which he attributed to a lack of attachment to a constant caregiver and a lack of emotional affection. Under the prevailing political conditions, his research results did not meet with a very positive response from the authorities. However, since his research results attracted attention in specialist circles, they nevertheless led to immediate improvements in the care concepts of these Czech institutions. He published the result of this research with Josef Langmeier in the book Psychical Deprivation in Childhood - Children without Love , which was translated into various languages ​​and found its way into the professional world. At the beginning of the 1960s, government agencies commissioned a film that was intended to emphasize the advantages of day nurseries over the family with a scientific coating. So in 1963, under the advice of psychologists Marie Damborska and Zdeněk Matějček, the film Children Without Love was made . However, contrary to what the clients expected, he showed the negative consequences of collective care in kindergartens and day care centers at that time. Damborska and Matějček's conclusions were already clear from the first sentence of the film:

“ What a small child needs most is an intense and lasting emotional bond with the mother. If this contact is interrupted and the child is not given a substitute with whom he can establish similar relationships, emotional damage will result. "

- Film: Children without love

The socialist clients were outraged and reacted with a character assassination campaign against the authors. The film itself was banned and the copies were locked away. An illegally made copy of the film was exported and shown at the Venice Film Festival in 1963. He received three awards and also became known in the West and the wider public. The international fame that the film achieved at the film festival protected Matějček and his colleagues from persecution by the communist state. According to the psychologist Jaroslav Sturma, the positive effect of the film was so clear that the Czech state had to change its family policy in the 1960s and in the new family law the family once again got the first place in the upbringing of the child.

“ There is a lot that we should still learn. We still don't really understand the smallest children because the child cannot tell us anything. We only try to decipher their behavior and guess or estimate what the child is experiencing. But we cannot convince ourselves of this by any experiment. "

- Zdeněk Matějček

Awards

  • The film Kinder ohne Liebe (directed by Kurt Goldberger) won three prizes at the Venice Film Festival .
  • Research award for "Distinguished Contribution to Research in Public Policy" from the American Psychological Association.
  • Honorary Doctorate from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada)
  • Medal of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for his life's work for creative teaching activities.
  • In 1996 Matějček was awarded the Medal of Merit by President Václav Havel .
  • In 2000 he received the Arnold Lucius Gesell Prize from the Theodor Hellbrügge Foundation in recognition of his unique, interdisciplinary and internationally groundbreaking services to research into early childhood psychosocial deprivation and its lifelong consequences, as well as the formative influence of parents on cognitive, communicative and social development of the human child.

Zdeněk Matějček Prize

The prize named after Matějček is awarded every two years to personalities who work to ensure that the needs of children based on developmental psychology are placed at the center of our society's interests and taken into account by it. Previous winners:

Publications (selection)

  • Former home children in adoption and family care. Experience from the Czech Republic. In: Children without attachment. Deprivation, adoption and psychotherapy, Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-608-94182-7
  • Jaroslav Koch and his struggle for harmonious child development , pp. 13–15, In: PEKiP . The Prague Parent-Child Program. Theoretical foundations. Origin and further development , Dieter Höltershinken, Gertrud Scherer (eds.), 2011 (4th, extended edition), project publisher, ISBN 978-3-89733-221-8
  • Protective factors in the psychosocial development of former home and foster children, in: Attachment and trauma. Risks and protective factors for the development of children, Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-608-94061-8
  • with Luděk Kubička, Zdeněk Dytrych, Zdeněk Roth: IQ and personality traits assessed in childhood as predictors of drinking and smoking behavior in middle-aged adults: a 24-year follow-up study , Addiction, Volume 96, Issue 11, pages 1615– 1628, November 2001. Abstract
  • with Zdeněk Dytrych: Children from unwanted pregnancy , Theodor Hellbrügge (ed.), Verlag Hansisches Verlagkontor Scheffler, Lübeck 1994, ISBN 978-3-87302-078-8 (English title: Born Unwanted , translated from Czech by Jana Christ in 1988)
  • with J. Dunovsky: Experiences with crèche children in the CSSR , 23rd International Easter Seminar Congress for Pediatric Further Education: in Brixen from April 8 to 21, 1990, ELVIKOM Film-Verlag
  • Cribs and the principles of family life. About the cribs in Czechoslovakia . Der Kinderarzt 20, 1989, pp. 829-834
  • Healthy and Unhealthy Attitudes of Parents , 20th International Easter Seminar Congress for Pediatric Further Education, 1987 (audio cassette)
  • Mental Deprivation , 20th International Easter Seminar Congress for Pediatric Further Education, 1987 (audio cassette)
  • with Zdeněk Dytrych, Vratislav Schüller: Follow-Up Study of Children Born from Unwanted Pregnancies , International Journal of Behavioral Development, September 1980 vol. 3 no.3 243-251. Abstract
  • with Josef Langmeier: Psychological deprivation in childhood, children without love . Urban & Schwarzenberg Publishing House, Munich 1977
  • with Zdeněk Dytrych, V. Schüller: Children from unwanted pregnancies , Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Volume 57, Issue 1, pages 67-90, January 1978. Abstract

Movie

  • Film "Children Without Love" 1963

literature

  • Johann Borchert, Bodo Hartke, Peter Jogschies (Eds.): Early support for children and adolescents with developmental problems . W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-17-020023-4
  • David B. Baker (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology: Global Perspectives. Oxford University Press Inc., 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-536655-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Zdeněk Matějček on Radio Praha
  2. ↑ Josef Lang Meier, Zdeněk Matějček: Mental deprivation in childhood: Children without love , publisher Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich, Vienna, Baltimore 1977, ISBN 3-541-07901-0 )
  3. ^ Fritz Poppenberg: Children without love. How a film was commissioned, banned and yet internationally known. THE ROCK 8-9 / 2008
  4. ↑ Family network: Matějček Prize ( memento of the original from March 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.familie-ist-zukunft.de
  5. ↑ For children: Matějček Prize 2007-2015
  6. ↑ For children: Children of love
personal data
SURNAME Matějček, Zdeněk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech child psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Chlumec nad Cidlinou , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 2004
Place of death Prague , Czech Republic