Hearing Secret Harmonies: Balint and The Re-Imagining of Medicine

Abstract

The author uses three poems – all by the same poet who was a respiratory physician – to describe the role the imagination in Balint groups, profoundly psychoanalytic in principle, in re-imagining medicine. He states that doctors emerge from medical school ‘one-eyed’ but can slowly move to restore ‘binocular vision’ through emotional insight and greater awareness of relationships gained through participation in a Balint group. He cites Enid Balint’s concept of ‘imaginative perception’ and describes a case which brings many of the themes of the talk together including unconscious communication and the nature of ‘time’ in the GP’s consulting room.

Zusammenfassung

Der Autor verwendet 3 Gedichte – alle von demselben Dichter, einem Lungenfacharzt -, um – im Prinzip zutiefst psychoanalytisch – die Rolle der Imagination in Balint-Gruppen, zu beschreiben und um damit die Medizin neu zu erfinden. Er stellt fest, dass Ärzte aus der medizinischen Fakultät „einäugig“ hervorgehen, sich aber langsam dahin entwickeln können, durch emotionale Einsicht und ein größeres Bewusstsein für Beziehungen das „binokulare Sehen“ – gewonnen durch die Teilnahme an einer Balint-Gruppe – wiederherzustellen. Er zitiert Enid Balints Konzept der „imaginativen Wahrnehmung“ und beschreibt einen Fall, der viele der Gesprächsthemen zusammenbringt, einschließlich denen der unbewussten Kommunikation und der zeitlichen Situation im Sprechzimmer des Hausarztes.

Key words

Imagination - Listening - Time - Poetry - Unconscious Communication

Schlüsselwörter

Phantasie - Hören - Zeit - Poesie - Unbewusste Kommunikation

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