Michael Balint

The work of Michael Balint, a leading object-relations theorist, has been neglected since his death in 1970. This book re-establishes his major contributions to psychoanalysis.

Whilst Michael Balint's applied work is widely known, many of his theoretical contributions have been incorporated into everyday analysis without due recognition of their source. In this account of his thinking, Harold Stewart evaluates the extent of Balint's contribution to psychoanalysis and firmly re-establishes his place within the development of Object Relations theory. The first section examines Balint's theories of human psychological development, defining such concepts as primary love, ocnophilia and philobatia, the basic fault and the three areas of the mind. The author places Balint's understanding of the analyst's influence and technique in the context of his relationship with Sandor Ferenczi, his analyst and mentor. The second section of this work looks at how the "Balint Group" has contributed to the assessment and understanding of emotional problems in various areas, including general practice, marital work and psychosexual medicine. A charismatic teacher, Balint's method of work with General Practitioners has become an established worldwide institution. Features of this work, including the use of countertransference and the affective response of the doctor are vividly described here by two General Practitioners, Andrew Elder and Robert Gosling. Michael Balint: Object Relations, Pure and Applied brings alive Balint's teaching and practice and demonstrates the relevance of his theories to many of the problematic issues in current analytic practice.

Michael Balint is above all known for the "Balint Groups", which came to be a generic term for groups involved with the training of doctors and caregivers in the patient-caregiver relationship. Despite this, the origin and full import of his work has been somewhat overlooked. Hélène Oppenheim-Gluckman provides us with a concise account of how reading Balint has enriched psychoanalytic theory and its practice by broadening the indications for the psychoanalytic cure and the debate on psychotherapies and the training to the professional care-giver-patient relation. Reading Michael Balint: A pragmatic clinician shows how Balint must be considered as one of the major figures in the British Independent School of psychoanalysis, along with Winnicott and Fairbairn. Oppenheim-Gluckman argues that his ideas, and the implications of his work with groups of medical practitioners, have remained hugely influential within modern psychoanalysis and training in medical psychology. Reading Michael Balint presents a clear overview of the main tenets of his work. It provides a fresh perspective on Balint’s contribution and its importance for modern object relations theory and practice and brief psychotherapy. It will be an invaluable resource for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, counsellors and trainee psychoanalysts and doctors. Hélène Oppenheim-Gluckman is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and has a doctorate in fundamental psychopathology and practises in Paris. She is a member of the Société de Psychanalyse Freudienne, the Société Médicale Balint, and a Balint Group "leader". She has published several books and a number of articles in psychoanalytic, medical, psychiatric and political-cultural journals.

This fascinating collection explores the life of renowned psychoanalyst Michael Balint in his native Budapest. With a Balint revival in mind, Michael Balint and his World: The Budapest Years brings together the work of psychoanalysts, social thinkers, historians, literary scholars, artists and medical doctors who draw on Balint’s work in a variety of ways. The book focuses on Balint’s early years in Budapest, where he worked with Sándor Ferenczi and a circle of colleagues, capturing the transformations of psychoanalytic thinking as it happens in a network of living relationships. Tracing creative disagreements as well as collaborations, and setting these exchanges in the climate of scientific, social and cultural developments of the time, Michael Balint and his World: The Budapest Years follows the development of psychoanalytic thinking during these critical times. The book recalls the story of several “lost children” of the Budapest School and reconstitutes Balint’s important early contributions on primary love. It also examines his little-known relationship with Lacan, including the extended discussion of Balint’s work by Wladimir Granoff in Lacan’s first public seminar in Paris in 1954, published here for the first time. This important book provides a fresh perspective on Balint’s enormous contribution to the field of psychoanalysis and will interest both scholars and clinicians. It will also inspire those interested in clinical practice and the applications of psychoanalysis to the cultural sphere.

In this volume, Michael Balint, who over the years made a sustained and brilliant contribution to the theory and technique of psychoanalysis, develops the concept of the 'basic fault' in the bio-psychology structure of every individual, involving in varying degree both mind and body. Balint traces the origins of the basic fault to the early formative period, during which serious discrepancies arise between the needs of the individual and the care and nurture available. These Discrepancies create a kind of deficiency state. On the basis of this concept, Balint assumes the existence of a specific area of the mind in shich all the processes have an exclusively two-person structure consisting of the individual and the individual's primary object. Its dynamic force, originating from the basic fault has the overwhelming aim of 'putting things right'. This area is contrasted with two others: the area of the Oedipus complex, which has essentially a triangular structure comprising the individual and two of his objects, and whose characteristic dynamism has the form of a conflict; and the area of creation, in which there are no objects in the proper sense, and whose characteristic force is the urge to create, to produce

The work of Michael Balint, a leading object-relations theorist, has been neglected since his death in 1970. This book re-establishes his major contributions to psychoanalysis.

This book explores the life and theories of Michael Balint, who kept alive Ferenczi's analytic traditions in Budapest and brought them to London, where they became a vital part of the Independent Group's theory and practice. Balint's theoretical understanding of regression, 'new beginnings', 'basic fault', as well as his profound impact on medicine, are all described. The work in the Balint groups by general practitioners, psychiatrists, and physicians are explored. Whole person and psychosomatic medicine, championed by Balint, is contrasted with today's more compartmentalised approach to medicine, including the increasing separation of the GP from the family. In the second part of the book Dr Sklar reflects on the complex tasks involved in psychodynamic assessment. Vignettes illustrate the importance of understanding the forces in family dynamics, the value of an early memory and a dream, and the sexual life of the patient. The author argues that Balint's ideas are of particular significance to us today, in our world of quick fixes and the overspecialisation of medicine.

This book explores the life, scholarly oeuvre and intellectual connections of the significant "first generation" Hungarian female psychoanalysts, situating their lives within the wider context of social history and the history of psychoanalysis. Budapest was one of the main centres of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century – in a period which was also central regarding women’s changing roles and possibilities. Favourable social circumstances met a new, freshly developing profession’s need for receptive followers regardless of their sex. This book shines a light on the social and professional factors on the life and work of these first women psychoanalysts, examining documentary evidence of their lives and drawing upon the literature of psychoanalysis, social history, and gender studies. Through their life stories, not only the history of psychoanalysis, but also the processes of 20th-century women’s history and social-political developments in Hungary and the region can be reconstructed. Key psychoanalysts explored include Lilly Hajdu, Edit Gyömrői, Alice Bálint, Vilma Kovács, Lillián Rotter and twelve further women analysts. This important book will be of interest to researchers in gender studies, the history of psychoanalysis, women’s and gender history, and Eastern European history.