Proving nothing and illustrating much: The case of Michael Balint

Abstract

John Forrester’s book Thinking in Cases does not provide one ultimate definition of what it means to ‘think in cases’, but rather several alternatives: a ‘style of reasoning’ (Hacking), ‘paradigms’ or ‘exemplars’ (Kuhn), and ‘language games’ (Wittgenstein), to mention only a few. But for Forrester, the stories behind each of the figures who suggested these different models for thinking (in cases) are as important as the models themselves. In other words, the question for Forrester is not only what ‘thinking in cases’ is, but also who might be considered a ‘thinker in cases’. Who could serve as a case study for such a thinker? The major candidates that Forrester considers in his book to be ‘thinkers in cases’ are Kuhn, Foucault, Freud, and Winnicott. In what follows, I will argue that one name is missing from this list, as well as from Forrester’s book more generally: Michael Balint. This name is missing not only because Balint was a great ‘thinker in cases’, but also because we have some reasons to believe that Forrester himself thought so and wished to add him to the list. Forrester, I will argue, found in Balint an exemplar for a thinker in cases that combined elements from Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theory and Foucault’s philosophy of the case-based sciences.

La revisión emocional del encuentro médico-terapéutico en M. Balint, P. Freeling y K. Browne (1957-1967)

“…7 Michael Balint fue editor y albacea de las obras de Sandor Ferenzi. Sobre Balint : Hopkins, 2004;Moreau Ricaud, 2002;Lakasing, 2005;Johnson, Brock y Zacarias, 2014;Oppenheim-Gluckman, 2015;Sklar, 2017;Muench, 2018;Buchanan, 2018;Bar-Haim, 2020. 8 Los médicos refugiados procedían de Alemania, Austria, Checoslovaquia, Hungría, Polonia, o Italia. Hacia 1938, un tercio de la Sociedad Psicoanalítica Británica era vienesa, aunque muchos volvieron a desplazarse tras la muerte de Freud (Weindling, 2010, pp.…”

Thinking in, with, across, and beyond cases with John Forrester

“…All, that is, aside from an investigation of Michael Balint. In ‘Proving Nothing and Illustrating Much: The Case of Michael Balint’, Bar Haim (2020) thereby answers Forrester’s provocation by focusing not only on what it might mean to ‘think in cases’ but also on whom we may not yet have noticed as a ‘thinker in cases’. With reference to Forrester’s own work on Balint, some of it unpublished and unfinished, Bar-Haim contends that the Hungarian psychoanalyst Balint is for Forrester – and also for us – an exemplar in his ability to connect historical and philosophical case-based reasoning, on the one hand, and clinical reasoning, on the other.…”

Problems and possibilities concerning the concept of psychoanalytic pedagogy in the light of the work of Susan Isaacs in the malting house school.

“…Isaacs’ suggestion shows similarity to Michael Balint’s remark on the difficulty of psychoanalytic vocabulary which hardly could be useful to general practitioners. Therefore, Bálint transformed the word of countertransference to the so-called “apostolic function” (Bar-Haim, 2020, p. 11). Isaacs attempt to convert psychoanalytic ideas into a more acceptable form was manifested during her work at the Nursery World magazine, which was a popular medium among nursery nurses, teachers, and parents.…”