Egyptian intellectual, writer and Ain Shams University professor of psychology Kadry Hefny died Sunday in Cairo at the age of 80. In his lifetime, Hefny was deemed one of the most influential figures in the field of psychology in Egypt and across the Arab world amd held many academic positions throughout his life. Hefny, born on 13 August 1938, graduated from Ain Shams University's Department of Psychology in 1959 and earned his PhD there in 1974. He specialised in Political Psychology. Hefny briefly left his work when he was jailed and tortured in 1959 at the age of 21 for being a communist. In an interview in 2004, he described his torture as "as a nice piece of my history, a fruitful experience," despite it being "horrible and suffocating" when it happened. After his release, Hefny severed his ties with politics and embraced a more traditional life -- until Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war against Israel shocked him along with most of his generation. He then decided to try to understand how the defeat happened, and to understand Israel. Hefny founded the Israeli Studies Unit at the Middle East Research Centre at Ain Shams University in 1974. He also worked as a consultant for UNICEF in Egypt and Bahrain. The late professor authored many books including Psychology and the Class Struggle, Incarnating the Illusion: A Psychological Study of the Israeli Character, The Psychological Interpretation of History. In 1973, he was awarded the highest Medal in Arts and Science by the Egyptian state, as well as the Appreciation Award in Social Sciences by the Supreme Council for Culture in 2002.
