This One Day Workshop Is Offered Both As an Introduction to Balint Work and An

A Balint Workshop Auckland Friday March 22, 2013 10am-4.30pm

This one day workshop is offered both as an introduction to Balint work and an opportunity to deepen and extend experience of this work. New participants will have the opportunity to experience a Balint group and learn about this way of working. Practitioners already participating in a Balint group or involved in leadership training are welcome.

Balint groups are a form of reflective practice in which clinicians meet to present cases and reflect on the nature of the doctor-patient relationship in order to better understand and use the relationship in a therapeutic way. Balint groups offer a safe and supportive setting to reflect upon difficult or intriguing cases.

Balint Groups Balint groups are usually ongoing with the same clinicians meeting on a regular basis over months or years. Most often each group is drawn from one profession and this has advantages as the Balint method often brings out the unique and precious nature of the work each profession possesses.

This workshop and others like it often have a mixture of professions attending and here the cross-professional meeting is often very valuable in terms of understanding each other and hearing new ideas.

Balint groups are named after Hungarian born psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Michael Balint who, working at the Tavistock Clinic with his wife Enid Balint in the 1950s, developed a unique method for understanding the GP-patient relationship. This method has been refined over the past fifty years and there are now many groups in UK, Europe and USA and a growing number in NZ and Australia.

Balint groups help clinicians: • Recognize they are not alone in having challenging interactions with patients • Develop increased understanding and empathy for patients • Explore how feelings and thoughts affect the clinician-patient relationship • Expand their capacity and repertoire for handling difficult situations with patients

Leaders: John Barton, psychotherapist and Balint leader in Melbourne, retired GP. Past President of the Australia and New Zealand Balint Society (BSANZ).

Diana Nash, General Practitioner and Secretary of the Balint Society of Australia and New Zealand

Cost: $250.00 + GST Venue: The Goodfellow Symposium Pre-Conference Workshop at The Langham Hotel

Morning and afternoon tea will be provided.

For more information about Balint work contact John Barton at: [email protected]

John is also very happy to ring you back to talk about Balint work if you email him with a landline telephone number or Skype ID and a time for him to ring.

Workshop Description The workshop offers the opportunity for health professionals to reflect upon difficult or intriguing cases, with a focus on the clinician-client (doctor-patient) relationship. The leaders facilitate this process and do not act as experts. Their task is to hold the structure of the Balint group so that it is a safe and supportive setting for the participants.

There will be initial introductions from all present followed by an explanation of how the Balint process works. We will then run several Balint cases and will end with discussion and questions about the method.

The participants will be invited to present cases where they have experienced a strong reaction such as distress, delight, frustration or uncertainty. The case is presented briefly and informally, with the emphasis on the nature of the clinicianclient interaction and including the clinician’s feelings and reactions. The group members then discuss the case, again focussing on the relationship rather than the client’s clinical material.

The group is asked to empathize with both the clinician's and the client’s experience and to speculate about what thoughts and feelings each might be having. Diverse views often emerge, reflecting the group members’ varied personalities and experiences. All ideas are allowed to “exist in the room” and there is no attempt to reach a “right” answer. The underlying assumption is that "the knowledge is in the group".

A Balint group is very different from the usual medical case presentation in that the members are strongly discouraged from making judgments, giving advice, or offering solutions and no attempt is made to reach a conclusion. Discussion of clinical management is actively discouraged. We assume that all the group members are competent and know how to manage their clients/patients. This structure creates a place of safety where the participants can feel comfortable discussing the uncomfortable moments in the consultation.

This way of working can be difficult at first, but once learnt is a liberating experience, stimulating deeper thought and understanding.