The emotional perspective of the encounter between doctor and patient in M. Balint, P. Freeling and K. Browne (1957-1967)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2023.04Keywords:
History of the doctor-patient relationship, History of emotions, Psychosomatic medicine, Trust in the medical relationship, 20th-century medicine, Healthcare professional-patient communicationAbstract
The emotional perspective of the doctor-patient relationship and the trust inherent in this interrelation are analysed through medical narratives published in the 1960s by Michael Balint, Kevin Browne and Paul Freeling. Balint promoted the so-called ‘Balint Groups’ in the Tavistock clinic (London), in which Browne and Freeling participated. Their publications are part of the psychoanalytic and psychosomatic approach, that updated the consideration of the person as a whole and showed the meaning of emotions in illness. Balint, Browne and Freeling highlighted the therapeutic nature of the doctor-patient relationship and underlined the subjectivity and participation of both the professional and the patient in the doctor-patient encounter. The Balint movement and within this framework, the work of Browne and Freeling, joined others that led to promoting the integration of the psychological and the social environment in the definition of the disease and in the practice of medicine at that time. The article also focusses the contrasts between the proposals of Michael Balint and those raised by the American Psychosomatic Society, and other psychoanalytic movements, regarding the doctor-patient relationship.
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