The UK Balint Society

This collection has not been fully catalogued yet. The following is a summary description: Records of the UK Balint Society from its foundation in 1969 to 2019, relating to running of the Society and its key activities including Balint groups, AGMs, lectures, accreditation and international conferences. The collection also contains publications relating to the methods and theories of the Society.
Records included in the collection:

- Minutes of Council meetings and Annual General Meetings
- Correspondence files maintained by the Society's Honorary Secretaries, including many letters related to Society activities
- Journal of the Balint Society, Vol 1 No.1, Vols 4-5 and Vols 7-47 only
- Flyers for Society meetings and events
- Reports of conference and lecture proceedings
- Attendance registers with signatures from early meetings
- Tape recordings of the 4th International Congress of Balint Societies held in London in 1978
- Tape recordings of an interview between Hopkins and Balint made shortly before Balint's death in 1970 and subsequently published in "Patient-Centred Medicine" (1972).
- Correspondence and papers of Philip Hopkins, a founding member and first President of the Balint Society (1950s-1990s). Includes letters between Michael Balint and Hopkins, mainly concerning Balint's book "The Doctor, His Patient and the Illness".
- Publications written or edited by members of the Balint Society

Most of the records date from before 2012, after which the Society moved to digital recordkeeping practices. Additional batches of material in this collection are described under 'Accruals'.

1950s-2010s

7 boxes

The records were organised by the Hon. Secs. of the Society, who also removed any clinicial or patient case notes. .

The UK Balint Society (originally named The Medical Society of Balint Groups) is a registered charity founded in 1969 to further the study of the doctor-patient relationship, as started by psychoanalysts Dr Michael Balint and his wife Enid Balint in the 1950s. The Society aims to help health and social care professionals enhance their understanding of the emotional and personal dynamics of their relationships with patients and clients. The Society uses and promotes the Balint method and Balint groups, which are regular meetings, led by a facilitator, in which health and social care professionals present and discuss challenging patient and client cases in order to gain a better understanding of the emotional content and how to improve the therapeutic nature of their relationship.
The Society is run by a Council, which reports to members at the Annual General Meeting.
More information about the work and activities of the Society is available on its website: https://balint.co.uk/.

Balint General Practice Seminars Psychotherapeutic techniques in medicine / Michael & Enid Balint. The doctor, his patient and the illness / Michael Balint. A study of doctors : mutual selection and the evaluation of results in a training programme for family doctors / Michael Balint [and others]. The doctor, the patient, and the group : Balint revisited / Enid Balint [and others]. The human face of medicine : based on the fourth international conference of the Balint society in Great Britain on the aims, achievements and assessment of Balint training, held on 8th-10th September 1978 at Imperial College, London / editor Philip Hopkins

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.

Acc 2654: Two boxes of additional material was transferred to Wellcome in April 2022 and is currently uncatalogued. This accrual includes:
- Minute books of meetings and AGMs and Council correspondence, 1970-1997

- UK and international lectures, conferences, workshop and study day papers, c.1970s-2010s

- Biographical material relating to Enid and Michael Balint

- Papers re the development of Balint publications, including source material from meetings, c.1980s-2000s

Records created by the UK Balint Society and its members, collated and maintained by the Society's Honorary Secretaries.