International Balint Award for Students

Introduction

For the purpose of this essay, I would like to give an account of the relationship with a patient during the first and second year of my clinical studies at University College London (UCL).

The relationship which I will describe is unusual, in that I did not come in contact with this patient as part of my regular clinical training at university. Rather, I was given the opportunity to build a close relationship with this patient by becoming part of UCL’s Student Psychotherapy Scheme.

This scheme allows 18 students, who have finished the first three years of their medical training and are starting the clinical part of medicine that year, to join the teaching hospital’s Psychotherapy Department and to be assigned a patient, who is seen by that student on a weekly basis, for one year. By the time the student finishes the program, they are midway through their second clinical year.

After each session with the patient, the student has to write up a report and discuss this with one of the consultant psychiatrists in the department who acts as their supervisor.

The scheme is thus a unique opportunity for a student to get a close insight, not only into the life of one patient they come in contact with, but also into the importance of the doctor-patient relationship, which in turn has a bearing on the contact of the patient with the medical profession as a whole.

1 In order to protect the privacy of my patient, I am using a fictitious first name to refer to her.