ABSTRACT
Enid Flora Eicholtz Balint Edmonds was born on 12 December 1903 in London and died there aged ninety on 30 July 1994. She was a full member of the British Psychoanalytic Society from 1954, became a training analyst in 1963, thereafter holding many important offices. Winnicott who had interviewed Balint for her candidacy telephoned her after the death of her first analyst, Rickman, and offered himself as her analyst. She initially declined, accepting some months later. Balint told James Anderson that she held Winnicott in the highest regard having benefited enormously from her five-year analysis with him in the early 1950s. Balint's particular contribution to the growth of Winnicott's thinking is based on the fact that, unlike Winnicott, she was able to "be herself" whilst open both to the influence of others' thinking and to complex organisational realities.
