DUSHANBE, March 26, 2009, Asia-Plus – The Balint group for training medical workers engaged in consulting the population on the HIV/AIDS and drug addiction matters will be organized in Dushanbe beginning on March 28, according to press service of the Ministry of Health (MoH).
Medical workers will be brought together once a month at the Center for Mental Health and HIV/AIDS in Dushanbe. The group will consist of 6-15 doctor and psychologists working in one or different institutions.
The Balint group is a group method of training doctors, generalists or specialists, in the doctor-patient relationship. This method was developed by Michael Balint and Enid Albu starting in 1945.
A dozen practitioners are brought together once a week for two hours under the direction of one or two analysts who receive honoraria and ensure the rules under which the group functions. A doctor reports, as spontaneously as possible, a case from his practice that poses a problem. Participants and leaders then help the presenter, by means associations, questions, and interpretations, to elucidate the difficulties in the presenter”s relation with the patient.
The aim is to sensitize the doctor to transference and counter-transference in the “retroactive
action” of the consultation, to give the doctor psychotherapeutic qualities, and thus to achieve a “considerable though limited change in the doctor”s personality” to enable the doctor to better understand and help patients (Balint, 1957, p. 121).
The Balint movement, launched in the 1960s, is organized on the institutional level. Several national associations have been created: The Balint Medical Society of France (1967), The Balint Society of Great Britain (1969), and others in over twenty countries, including Italy (1974), Germany, Belgium, and Russia (1994). On the international level, the European Council recognized the Balint Federation as a nongovernmental agency. As of 2004, the work of the Balints continued, with training in Balint groups, colloquia, and national and international conferences.
