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I am glad to review this book not only because it deals with a very important subject but also because I feel that the author expresses his personality well in this kind of work. It may prove that this is a pioneer's book.
It is not about psycho-analysis, but it does concern the psycho-analyst in his relationship to the general public. We are used to society's reaction to the idea of the repressed unconscious and of infantile sexuality, but we are not altogether alive to another danger, which is that if we are good we are also tantalizing. We offer something, but we seem to withhold it. It might be that psycho-analysis would survive persecution and would yet be destroyed because in being good it reserves its benefits for those very few individuals who happen to be able to arrange to have an analysis.
In the work described in this book, Balint makes a specific attempt to widen the scope of analysis and to do so by using the potential that there is in general practice. Fourteen general practitioners formed a group with Michael Balint and Enid Balint under the auspices of the Trvistock Clinic. Gradually a statement of the problem was reached by this group, and perhaps the beginnings of a solution could be discerned. In what follows I shall attempt to show something of the content of the book and of the reasons why I feel that it is of importance to psycho-analysis.
General practice provides a good medium for the spread of psychotherapy along psycho-analytic lines. There are certain things about general practice which make the practitioner especially suitable for this work. It will be clear that it is not