Iván Böszörményi-Nagy was born in 1920 in Hungary, although his work of psychiatry and family therapy bonds him to the United States of America. Following his death in the age of 87, according to his will, he was rested in peace in his home village. He nourished intensive relationship with the Hungarian family therapists, after the Change of Regime, despite his weakening physical state, he visited Hungary several times – his view fundamentally formed the work of those therapists too who mainly did not work in this integrative, transgenerational frame.

This might not be that surprising, knowing that Iván Böszörményi-Nagy fundamentally operates with everyday terms, such ones that unspeakably appears in most of our relevant relationships, for instance: equity, reliability, fairness, legitimacy (or gained worthiness), familiar inheritances, the constantly expansive dynamics of vertical and horizontal loyalty or questions of relationship ethics. He interprets relationship ethics as essential condition to the formation of intersubjective balance. This therapeutic method basically can be considered as the alloy of individual and family therapy; built on object-relation theory and interpersonal and existential notions, he stands the individual’s five relationship dimensions within the system (family) into the focus. He not only executes intervention with therapeutic nature but he pays emphasized attention to preventative aspects, to the well-being of the future generation. His very friendly and apparently easily fulfillable (reality is more complex than that) principal is that within the system each one of us has the right for his feelings but we need to make efforts to behave constructively while considering the interest of all members of the system. He sets as a goal the development of the relational abilities of the family members, and the restoration of the integration of the reliability and relationship.

According to his theory, there are five dimensions of individual relational reality (interesting fact that he announced the fifth, ontic dimension in the Regional Meeting of Family Therapy in Szeged in 2000). The first one is the dimension of the facts, that examines such issues as genetically determined roots, fate, physical state – putting it more simple: the pure reality that is given. Psychological aspects belong to the second dimension, such are (non-finitly): fundamental spiritual needs, object relations, attachment, dream or fantasy. The third is the dimension of transactions, such terms -explicitly used in family therapy- appears as structure, games, scapegoat creation, relational triangles or parentification. The next one is the relational, ethical dimension (where ethics is not interpreted as moral notion but he reckons that it is rooted in the connection of mutual merits and obligations), the scene of the most profound changes. Its source point is that human, due to his anthropological being, aims for fairness. The intergenerational aspects of the method appear emphasized in this dimension. He started to draw up the fifth, ontic dimension based on the conversations with his philosopher (Martin Buber, one amongst) and physicist friends. Placing such terms into the forefront that defines the existence fundamentally, such as the mutual existence-dependence, interdependence or the transcendent, spiritual dimensions of our life (existence). This extremely exciting dimension (from therapeutic point of view) – in my personal opinion – still after the death of the master, it is well worth to further-think and enrich.

 In terms of the development of family therapy, we can consider the transgenerational method of Iván Böszörményi-Nagy as a paradigm-change, it strongly influences the next generations of the family therapists.