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When Michael Balint started running groups for medical students at University College London (UCL) School of Medicine in the late 1960s, he was conducting an experiment in medical education. He sought to develop a patient-centred approach to medicine as opposed to the illness-centred way of thinking which prevailed at the time. He considered emotional problems a psychosomatic entity that occupied a no-man's land, being neither the province of the physician nor the psychiatrist. The traditional illness-centred approach to medical training encouraged students to adopt the position of observers of the objective phenomenology of illness. This approach neglected the other axis of observation, the study of emotions to elucidate the link between emotional disturbance and the physical symptoms of the patient. His work built upon the existing medical student psychotherapy scheme at UCL established by Heinz Wolff, Dorothea Ball and Roger Tredgold in 1958. The scheme offered students the opportunity to see patients for psychodynamic psychotherapy under supervision. Both the psychotherapy scheme and student Balint groups continue to run to this day.
The founders of this scheme identified an approach to training distinct from the more recent development of communications-skills training. Students of medicine are now taught communications skills through simulated patient interviews using actors. Addressing how doctors relate to their patients through skills training reflects the medical emphasis on action rather than receptivity, a growing dependence upon technologies and fewer opportunities to develop long-term relationships with patients. The limitations of this approach in developing the trainee doctor's capacity to develop and understand the significance of the doctor-patient relationship are beginning to be recognized. Therefore The Royal College of Psychiatrists intend to develop medical student psychotherapy schemes and Balint groups in every medical school in the country b