2001 Michael Balint Memorial Lecture

British Balint Society

14^TH MICHAEL BALINT MEMORIAL LECTUREThe 14^th Michael Balint memorial Lecture was given at the Royal College of general Practitioners on Tuesday 24 April 2001 by Dr John Salinsky who is a General practitioner and general secretary of the International Balint Federation. The lecture is given under the auspices of the Balint Society every second year.John Salinsky's title was: “Balint groups and Psycho-analysis: what have the Romans done for us?”. He began by recalling the origins of the Balint movement in the 1950s and noted that Michael Balint and his psycho-analyst colleagues wanted to offer some much needed help to family doctors who were struggling with bewildering psychosomatic problems. The GPs who took part benefited enormously from taking part in Balint's case discussion groups and Balint groups spread all over the world. But, nowadays, very few analysts in Britain are involved and most groups, especially those in vocational training schemes, are led by GPs. Where have the analysts gone? Perhaps the Balint Society itself has put them off by “modernising” Balint in a way which deliberately played down its psycho-analytic origins. Did the loss of the analysts really matter? The audience were treated to a video clip from the film “Monty Python's Life of Brian” in which John Cleese asks his revolutionary Judean followers: “what did the Romans ever do for us?”. The followers produce lots of examples (“the aqueduct; the roads, the wine, the sanitation” etc) to the dismay of their leader. Britain had Romans too, but they left Britain in the 5^th Century leaving little trace of their culture behind. Were the psycho-analysts the Balint movement's “Romans”? Strangely enough, the Balint movement in continental Europe is still predominantly led by analysts. In Britain, GP leaders do very well as leaders of vocational training groups as they are not tempted to make too many “interpretations”. They stick to more simple interventions designed to encourage the group members to do the work and to focus on the doctor patient relationship. But even these apparently simple ideas are informed by “Seven Principles” which our psycho-analyst “Romans” handed down to us. They are underpinned by the idea that some mental processes are unconscious and that patients and doctors have strong (often unconscious) feelings about each other. Whether we like them or not, we neglect these emotions at our peril.

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