Discussion of Enid Balint's Article, Training as an Impetus to Ego Development

Enid Balint has introduced into this thoughtful paper the old syncretistic dilemma that confronts every psychoanalyst who has the double role of teacher and analyst. The psychoanalytic institutes have tried to solve some of the difficulties, not only at the moment of selection but throughout the period of training whenever an evaluation of the student is indicated.

Mrs. Balint looks at the problem chiefly from the point of view of the student, speaking of “the difficulties of being compelled to function simultaneously in two different worlds,” and considers that they “might, to some extent, be diminished.” The psychoanalytic student, however, has just this task: to deal with his own several worlds of conscious, preconscious and unconscious and with the outer world, the better to help his patient in the same dimensions. He learns (grows) in recognizing and trying to solve conflict, the agent provocateur of learning. Thus he expands his ego, as does the general practitioner who attends Mrs. Balint's seminar, and she compares this aptly to the learning process in children and adolescents.

The goal of psychoanalysis is to extend ego boundaries, but its task is more extensive and intensive than that which the student meets in a seminar. Complacency and rebellion are a part of the course. The psychoanalytic program as set up by the American Psychoanalytic Association with its classes, seminars and supervision provides the “in-between world” of which Mrs. Balint writes. The seminar she so well describes for the general practitioner is an excellent example of successful application of psychoanalytic understanding to teaching.