Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 200-201. (Budapest, 2007)
TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - FORRAI, Judit: History of a Special Healing Method for Motor-disordered Children: Conductive Education - A mozgásszervi betegségben szenvedő gyermekek egyik sajátos gyógymódja, a konduktív nevelés története
than one lesson per day, it is a school of the brain as well. Steiner with his philosophy and educational method had a great effect on his Hungarian contemporaries such as: Sándor Karácsony, György Kontra, Sándor Török, Ottó Mihály, and other psychologists and professional educators 13 . Among them was Pető, who studied Steiner's writings and consulted Sándor Török 14 about them. Pető called his method conductive pedagogy. About the why and the how Ilona Székely , first leading conductor tells us the following: "Many a time he held so called open sessions. During them he gave the new tasks to the group, but the way in which we helped, "facilitated" had to be made up by us. We had to help as if we were not actually helping. This is hard to understand, but it is what conductive education is: leading, directing. The solitary violinist needs no conductor; the sheets of music and his own soul direct the making of music. This is what conduction is. Pető worked on the form, content and duration of the training intensively. What we were called changed many times: we were movement therapists, child nurses, but none of the names covered what we were actually doing. He was looking for a special training and a name that would easily be told apart from everything and everyone else. Because the world could hardly understand what we were doing, they could not really put it into words either. Foreigners were already showing interest and we still didn't have an acceptable name. The method continuously changed. The phrase "to correct" or "rehabilitate" caused Pető enormous problems, because he didn't want people to think of us as physiotherapists, which would have put the independence of the Institute into doubt. Then "healing education " was thought of, but he discarded that as well. In essence, the conductor is a professionally trained mother, who directs or conducts the activity of her child. In this process everything we do is included. Because it is the mother who teaches the child to sit, walk, talk and live. In Pető's method, it is the conductor who takes on this role. " The healing method In 1955 Pető described his circle of patients in the following way: "The reputation of the Institute woke the interest of paediatricians, and the investigating commission stated in its report that the patients can be successfully treated in the institute. And in spite of the fact that those who ended up here were usually the ones who had been sent away from other places as incurable cases or hadn't even been admitted there. To this group belong firstly those with motor disablement due to cerebral damage: those who suffered child paralysis and all hope of their healing had already been abandoned, and finally those cases of paralysis that were caused by accidents or by other damage. The patients vary in age, they cannot change their position or use their limbs consciously and they were treated in other institutions without any success. " I6 13 Vekerdy, Tamás: Álmok és lidércek. Budapest, T-Twins,1992. 41-57. 14 Sándor Török (1904- 1985) Writer, drama translator. 15 Interview with Ilona Székely In: Forrai Judit: Memoirs of the beginnings of conductive pedagogy and András Pető. Budapest-Birmingham, Új Aranyhíd-Foundation of Conductive Education, 1999. 93-97. 16 Pető, András: Conductive Movement Therapy as Special Education, in Gyógypedagógia Vol. I., January-April, (1955) 16.
