DIPLOMATI FOR ET SMERTENSBARN I PSYKOANALYSEN

Om psykoanalytikeren Michael Balint

Abstract

Above all, the works ofthe psychoanalyst Michael Balint is viewed as a diplomacy and advocacy for Ferenczis points of view; furthermore some atypical and critical comments on the education of psychoanalysts are stressed. With Ferenczi Balint also insists on the importance of the objects, especially regarding psychoanalysis of difficult cases, the patients suffering from a so called basic fault since those cases could be described and handled as regressions within the object relations. Firstly, the problems in this context are of a theoretical nature: In the early part of his authorship
Balint makes a definite splitting of Freuds concept of the libido in a biological and a psychological dimension, respectivly, by means of which essential aspects of the theory of the libido are lost, in particular regarding the dynamics between transference and resistance, and in the understanding of the etiology of the neuroses.