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This collection of Enid Balint's papers takes us on an impressive journey through her development as a psychoanalytic thinker over some 40 years, a process that places her “within the Independent tradition of British psychoanalysis” (p. 2). It is difficult to read this highly straightforward account without feeling an emotional response to the material, a tribute to Balint's gift for engaging the reader in an intimate way.
The two admiring editors guide the reader through the chapters of the book with helpful introductory summaries. Juliet Mitchell interviews Enid Balint in a closing chapter that seems to “tie up loose ends” by stating explicitly ideas that had been left implicit.
The design partitions the book into papers related to Balint's work in individual psychoanalysis; papers on group consultation work with physicians who are GP's; and two papers associated with her training of marriage therapists at the Institute of Marital Studies at the Tavistock Clinic. The editors stress that Balint, in all three endeavors, was functioning as a psychoanalyst and not as some other kind of practitioner or educator. Balint shows, in a wonderfully candid style of writing, the many ways that a psychoanalyst can benefit society beyond the boundaries of an individual psychoanalytic practice.
Opening with a chapter that explains psychoanalytic clinical work to the general public and to beginning analysts in such an accessible way that it could easily capture for Balint the designation of “ambassador” for our profession. In the next five chapters, spanning the 20-year period 1954-1973, she shares her early thinking on clinical topics. The titles are vivid and evocative: “On Being Empty of Oneself” and “The Mirror and the Receiver.” Four