How Was It For You? A Balint Group Taster Session

Event Description

Balint groups are aimed at all mental health professionals, MD's, residents and allied health workers.  The focus is on the everyday work that we do, helping the group to imagine and articulate what a particular practitioner's experience with a patient is like.

The difference from case discussions usually experienced by clinicians is the focus on the emotions of the clinician and patient arising within the consultation, rather than the clinical content.  Crucially, it is not about knowing, diagnosing, supervising or formulating; nor about accuracy, certainty or authority. The group and group leader help each presenter and the supporting group members, to ask- how do I feel? What is this work like for me? What am I struggling with? What touches me about this patient.... What am I struggling with?

When listening to others in the group, many people new to Balint discussions soon recognize the relevance to their own experiences. The group develops over time to become searching and intimate or challenging, without compromising the basic structure of presenting. Viewed as primarily a research project, as well as a method of training practitioners to listen to the unconscious, groups aim to study the ways in which the presenter's further unconscious feelings might be affecting the consultation.

The best way to find out more is to take part in a group. I have a particular interest in exploring, expressing and facilitating expression of the clinician's subjective experience of what we do. I emphasize a warm, supportive and deeply curious atmosphere, and seek to reignite passion, self-awareness and collegiality. This introductory taster session will be ideal for those interested in exploring membership in a newly-forming Tucson Balint group or curious bystanders, wannabe particulars and gentle cage-rattlers.

About the Presenter

I am a Psychoanalyst/Psychotherapist in private practice in Chicago and soon, Tucson. I have run similar groups in London and attend Balint events nationally and internationally. I am passionate about building, with others, ways of off-setting the isolation and loneliness of (private) practice, fostering personal enquiry and supporting personal expression of what matters most.