The Budapest School's Concept of Supervision

Michael Balint made original and important contributions to psychoanalytic theory, therapy, research, and training (see Bacal and Newman, 1990). Balint is perhaps best known, though, for his pioneering work in bringing a psychoanalytic perspective to medical practice (Balint, 1957). What is less well-known is that the “Balint Group,” a seminar-based clinical training for general physicians in psychotherapeutic work, was Balint’s adaptation of the unique approach to supervision in the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society, that Balint actually offered in its original form ¹ to his analysands at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London.