Border situations and the creation of a home in the life and work of Alaine Polcz
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17627/ALKPSZICH.2025.4.259Keywords:
boundary situations, people-environment transaction, creative space, Alaine Polcz, homeAbstract
Editorial note: At the authors’ request, the abstract and keywords on the article’s online page have been revised. The abstract and keywords presented here should be considered the final versions. The previously published PDF contains the originally published versions.
Alaine Polcz’s personal life and work were permeated at every turn by “ boundary- situations” in the Jasperian sense. The suffering caused by poverty in early childhood and an unreliable father, the lack of love and betrayal she experienced in her first marriage, the countless abuses she endured at the hands of Russian soldiers during the war, the lifelong illnesses resulting from these experiences, and her repeated brushes with death all made the fragility of existence a fundamental experience for her. The plunge from her “queen-like existence” into the depths, which she experienced in her second, deeply loving marriage, was also accompanied by acute existential experiences. According to her own account, these life events led to her professional interests and work, enabling her to become a pioneer in thanatology.
In addition to these boundary situations, the central role of a person’s physical environment also repeatedly emerges in both her professional and private life. In one of her early works (1959), she states that a person’s mental state is projected onto the physical world around them, and that their feelings, behavior, and thinking can be successfully influenced by transforming their environment. In this study, I examine how this environmental psychology perspective can be observed in her work—from the World Game Test through her work in pediatric clinics to the hospice movement—and how the importance of a sense of home is reflected in these endeavors.
In this study, I also discuss her creative work, including her writing, which is intertwined with her private life and the creative world of her husband, Miklós Mészöly. An examination of their relationship to their home paints a fascinating picture of their lives, and the nature of their use of the home is a particularly revealing reflection of the dynamics of their relationship.
The source material for this analysis was drawn from the books by Alaine Polcz and Miklós Mészöly, their published correspondence, interviews conducted with them or about them, and memorial writings.
