He was born in 1939 in Győrszentmárton (currently Pannonhalma). He obtained a degree from the Budapest University of Medicine in 1963 and in 1974 he received a degree in clinical psychology at the Faculty of Art of Eötvös Lóránd university. In. 1990 he completed a correspondence course at Pázmány Péter Roman Catholic Theological Academy. From 1963 he is a member of the Psychiatry Clinic of the Budapest University of Medicine, and a university professor since 1989. Between 1992 and 1994 he was chief director of the teaching hospital of the Semmelweis University of Medicine and head of the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Department. From 1994 he was director of the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinic of Semmelweis University of Medicine (head of department, university professor). Since 2002 he has been the president the Hungarian Psychiatry Association. He is the mental-healthcare liason person of the European Office of the WHO and coordinator of the Central European region. His main fields of research are the psychic phenomena, behavioural disturbances and their therapy, as well as their biological, social and philosophical implications. In 1979 he obtained a postgraduate degree in medicine with his thesis, "The Motivational Theory of Neuroses". He has been teaching neurology and psychiatry for medical students since 1964. He has been the president of the Specialisation and Further Training Committee of Semmelweis University since 1999 and president of the Ethics Committee from 2002.