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Michael Balint: An Overview
Abstract
Balint's important work extended over a period of 40 years in two directions; firstly the development of individual sexuality, and secondly, the development of object relationships, together with their relationship to psychoanalytical technique. He introduced the concept of primary love and was one of the pioneers in the thinking of the interdependence of mother and infant. He extended Ferenczi's work on therapeutic regression, introducing the concepts, among others, of benign and malignant regression, the basic fault, and the states of ocnophilia and philobatism. His applied psychoanalytic work is world famous, particularly the Balint groups for general practitioners and similar groups for marital therapists, social workers, and psychosexual counselors.
... He moved to England with his family in 1939 and worked as a psychoanalyst in London until his death. He published books and articles on sexual functioning and on the development of human relations and founded the British Object Relation School of Psychoanalysis [69][70][71]. The most well known of his contributions is the Balint groups, which he initiated together with his second wife, Enid Balint, at the Tavistock Clinic in 1951. ...
... How much can the method in the Balint group be changed and it can still be called a Balint group? Michael Balint himself is described as a person with great curiosity and open to new influences, always willing to try new ways, but he was also rather authoritarian and had a great charisma [71]. The Balint movement resembles in some ways a religious movement with the subsequent risks of fundamentalism. ...
... The British literature uses a narrative case description technique focussing on the process in the physicianpatient relation, continuing the tradition of Michael Balint [10,43,67,86] Lately some interesting articles on leader techniques and process in Balint groups have been published in the USA [87][88][89]. A whole issue of The American Journal of Psychoanalysis in 2002 was about Michael Balint, mostly from a psychoanalytic point of view [71]. ...
... På det tidspunkt var hans interesse for psykoanalyse dog allerede vakt, inspireret af hans kone Alice, hvis mor var psykoanalytiker; endvidere havde han laest bøger af Freud og hørt ham i 1918. Dog blev det Sandor Ferenczi, der blev hans psykoanalytiske laerer og inspirator, hvilket fik betydning for hans senere interesser og arbejder [2][3][4][5][6]. I Berlin tog han sin psykoanalytiske uddannelse og arbejdede psykoterapeutisk med somatisk syge patienter. ...
... undersøgte karakteristika for de laeger, der valgte at fortsaette og dem, der droppede ud af grupperne [15]. Der har siden vaeret skrevet mange artikler om brugen af Balintgrupper [4,[16][17][18][19][20], såvel prae-som postgraduat i laegeuddannelsen. I undersøgelserne har man isaer fokuseret på deltagernes udbytte, og det tyder på, at deltagelse i en Balintgruppe øger deltagernes empati, bedrer en mere patientcentreret kommunikation, øger jobtilfredshed og kan vaere med til at forebygge udbraendthed hos de sundhedsprofessionelle. ...
Michael Balint anno 2017
Michael Balint has influenced the development of post-war general practice significantly with a focus on the doctor-patient relationship. He was born in Budapest, became a doctor and a psychoanalyst and was concerned with, how psychotherapy could be integrated in medicine. In 1939, he emigrated to the United Kingdom and started group sessions with general practitioners, training them in dealing with psychological conditions in the general practice consultation, as described in his book “The doctor, his patient and the illness”. The method has become widespread and is still relevant for health professionals.
... På det tidspunkt var hans interesse for psykoanalyse dog allerede vakt, inspireret af hans kone Alice, hvis mor var psykoanalytiker; endvidere havde han laest bøger af Freud og hørt ham i 1918. Dog blev det Sandor Ferenczi, der blev hans psykoanalytiske laerer og inspirator, hvilket fik betydning for hans senere interesser og arbejder [2][3][4][5][6]. I Berlin tog han sin psykoanalytiske uddannelse og arbejdede psykoterapeutisk med somatisk syge patienter. ...
... undersøgte karakteristika for de laeger, der valgte at fortsaette og dem, der droppede ud af grupperne [15]. Der har siden vaeret skrevet mange artikler om brugen af Balintgrupper [4,[16][17][18][19][20], såvel prae-som postgraduat i laegeuddannelsen. I undersøgelserne har man isaer fokuseret på deltagernes udbytte, og det tyder på, at deltagelse i en Balintgruppe øger deltagernes empati, bedrer en mere patientcentreret kommunikation, øger jobtilfredshed og kan vaere med til at forebygge udbraendthed hos de sundhedsprofessionelle. ...
Michael Balint has influenced the development of post-war general practice significantly with a focus on the doctor-patient relationship. He was born in Budapest, became a doctor and a psychoanalyst and was concerned with, how psychotherapy could be integrated in medicine. In 1939, he emigrated to the United Kingdom and started group sessions with general practitioners, training them in dealing with psychological conditions in the general practice consultation, as described in his book "The doctor, his patient and the illness". The method has become widespread and is still relevant for health professionals.
... A.S. Davidsen paper in 1955 (Stewart, 2002) and repeated in his famous book with the same title (Balint, 1957). Balint's thoughts follow a straight line from the first of his papers written in the 1930s until his last book The Basic Fault (Balint, 1968;Dupont, 2002). ...
The review of the Russian and foreign literature on the relationships of psychosomatic medicine and Balint supervision of physicians was conducted. We selected and analyzed articles from MEDLINE / PubMed Elibrary.ru, Scopus databases during from 1990 till 2020, international medical journals and collections of scientific papers as well as relevant references in the bibliography of the analyzed articles. The search was carried out with the usage of search queries of various combinations of the specified key words.
The “philosophy” of psychosomatic medicine and the theory of Balint supervision have the evident common historical grounds. Psychosomatic medicine and Balint supervision are united by the conception that the patient’s perceptions about his/her illness, related to it experiences and behavior as well as their relationships to his/her unconscious are very important in the therapy process. That means that the experiences and behavior of a physician related to the complicated communication with the patient are important as well. The patient has to be no more a passive object of the care so the process of therapy obtains the character of interpersonal communication and the mutual influence between the patient and the physician. This point is what Balint supervision is focused at. The technology of Balint group work helps physicians to shift an emphasis in the clinical practice from the disease-centered to the patient-centered approach. The analysis of Balint groups effectiveness provided during more than fifty years brought an evidence that Michael Balint presented very efficient method which helped physicians in different medical fields and psychologists reduce their emotional arousal in the treatment of “difficult” patients who are patients with psychosomatic disorders very frequently. The integrative relationships between basic approaches of psychosomatic medicine and Balint supervision in physicians and psychologists are described. The history of the relations and common principles related to the attention to the complexed issues of physician-patient communication and the therapy in psychosomatic disorders which becomes more successful due to the impact of analytical Balint supervision, are analyzed. The significance of Balint groups work in the training of the health care professionals, who are treating patients with psychosomatic disorders, difficulties and perspectives of implementation of Balint group method into the system of education and training of general practitioners, psychiatrists and psychotherapists are presented.
Experience and Representation: Contemporary Perspectives on Migration in Australia provides a critical overview of influential theoretical perspectives and recent empirical material in the fields of migration, race, culture and politics. With a primary focus on Australia, the book explores the complexities surrounding migration; sets out the most appropriate frameworks to understand ethnicity and racism; and assesses the utility of the concepts of globalisation, transnationalism and multiculturalism for interpreting contemporary society. Specific chapters explore the experiences of migrants within the context of urban environments; the vexed issue of national identity; the meaning of home; and the ways that migrants are currently represented in the media, literature and film. Experience and Representation will be of interest to scholars of migration and those studying social theory, politics and the media.
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Een Balintgroep helpt de huisarts te reflecteren op haar emotionele mogelijkheden en beperkingen en de invloed van haar functioneren
als arts op het contact met de patiënt. Daardoor verandert haar houding van een ziektegerichte oriëntatie naar een patiëntgerichte
houding. De psychotherapeut kan vanuit zijn ervaring met de hantering van de therapeutische relatie en zijn kennis van psychopathologie
een bijdrage leveren aan dit leerproces van huisartsen. Na een beschrijving van het doel en de werkwijze van de Balintgroep
volgt een bespreking van Balints betekenis voor het huisartsenwerk. Aansluitend schets ik mijn rol als begeleider en bespreek
ik de mogelijkheid voor de psychotherapeut de begeleiding van de intervisies van andere beroepsbeoefenaars op zich te nemen.
present a theoretical system / the derived hypotheses that are intended to admit of empirical test, and to a lesser extent the theoretical system itself, bear the same relationship to the observed facts in a psychoanalysis as statements of applied mathematics, say about a mathematical circle, bear to a statement about a circle drawn upon paper / intended to be applicable in a significant number of cases
this model will serve for the theory that every junction of a preconception with its realization produces a conception
the model . . . is that of an infant whose expectation of a breast is mated with a realization of no breast available for satisfaction (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A contribution to the typology of character is offered by this psychoanalyst. Two extreme types are isolated which are distinguished by their difference in object relationships: the philobat for whom objects are intrusions, who prefers empty spaces and wishes to be free of ties; the ocnophil who clings to objects and needs their support. Philobatism and ocnophilia, the implications of which are discussed, "are both secondary states developing… as reactions to the traumatic discovery of the separate existence of objects… . the developments of instinctual aims—oral, anal, urethral, genital… and of relationship to objects—primary love, ocnophila and philobatism, narcissism, active adult love, etc.—are two separate processes though mutually influencing each other." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Introduction. The General Problem. The Patients Offers and the Doctors Responses. Elimination by Appropriate Physical examination. Incidence and Evaluation of Neurotic Symptoms. Level of Diagnosis. The Collusion of Anonymity. The General Practitioner and His Consultants. The Perpetuation of the Teacher-Pupil Relationship. Advice and reassurance. How to Start. When to Stop. The Special Psychological Atmosphere of General Practice. The General Practitioner as Psychotherapist. A: Two Illustrative Cases. The general Practitioner as Psychotherapist B: The Difficult Case. The Apostolic Function-I. The Apostolic Function-II. The Doctor and his Patient. The Patient and his Illness. General Practitioner Psychotherapy. Summary and Future outlook.
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Psychoses and child care In Collected papers: Through pae-diatrics to psychoanalysis (pp. 219–228). London: Tavistock. (Original work pub-lished 1953)
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Winnicott, D. (1958). Psychoses and child care. In Collected papers: Through pae-diatrics to psychoanalysis (pp. 219–228). London: Tavistock. (Original work pub-lished 1953)
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Balint, M. (1956). The doctor, his patient and the illness. In Problems of human pleasure and behaviour. New York: Liveright. (Original work published 1955) Balint, M. (1957). The doctor, his patient and the illness. London: Pitman Medical Publishing. Balint, M. (1959). Thrills and regressions. London: Hogarth Press. Balint, M. (1968). The basic fault: Therapeutic aspects of regression. London: Tavi-stock.
Psychotherapeutic techniques in medicine
- M Balint
- E Balint
Focal psychotherapy-an example of applied psychoanalysis
- M Balint
- P Ornstein