If you find practising medicine easy then this book is not for you. For the rest of us it is a thoughtful and at times embarrassingly relevant read. The book is the result of a Balint group recording and analysing their work together, and then being brave enough to share it with the world.
Michael Balint was a Psychotherapist who worked with groups of GPs from the 1950s onwards. He is gone but not forgotten. Many 'Balint Groups' live on, seeking to enable doctors to use psychotherapeutic insights and techniques in the context of an ordinary consultation. His seminal book 'The Doctor, His Patient and the Illness' was published in 1957. It opened the floodgates of current GP literature by importing psychological concepts into the medical model.
But I have to confess that Balint groups make me think of brown suits and hornrimmed glasses. Surely we've moved on? I brought my prejudices along as I picked up the book. But they were soon replaced by a recognition that this is a superbly honest, reflective and intelligent work. It gazes mercilessly at the experience and frustrations of being a flawed human being put into a demanding, pressurised and intimate professional role.
This book came at an interesting time for me. Recently I have been reflecting much on what it is to be a disciple of Jesus in the consulting room. In line with the old adage, when I was young I wanted to change the world and now I am a bit older I realise that it is I who must change. This book is a real stimulus to honest selfexamination, and offers genuine insights into the person behind the professional mask. As Christians what will we do with this? Can this area of professional life come more fully under the saving grace and the lordship of Jesus?
All grace is God's grace. Yet again the GP educational world brings questions and challenges which we as Christians should see as our home turf. Any book that makes me want to join a Balint group must be powerful stuff. I recommend it.
Reviewed by:
David Misselbrook
General Practitioner in London
