ON THE THEORY OF THE BALINT GROUP

The author tries to develop the classic approach to the Balint group t heory further which he distinguishes from a popular one. For this he u ses his own alterity theoretical concept in which the understanding of reciprocal relations is central as a foundation. On this basis he ass umes that in the referee's report from a Balint group a part of self i s actualized and is presented as the patient, whereby this contributio n is to be seen as an idea, in principle on the same level as the cont ributions of the other participants. In the author's understanding the referee interprets the group events with his idea. The author propose s to understand the talk about a patient analogous to a dream idea in the classical setting of psychoanalysis and to deal with it correspond ingly. He discusses resistance analysis and a characeristic attitude o f the group leader, which enables the group members to become familiar with a psychoanalytic attitude of perception as special techniques of working. Furthermore the author sees Balint work as having the goal o f enabling the participant to get out of a basic disorder which is act ualized at times: Should it be successful to unlock the clinch between referee and patient the possibility would arise that the patient's ch ances of effecting something previously not able to be actualized coul d also materialize. In closing the author discusses differences and th ings in common between Balint work and other forms of supervision and self experience.