Enid Balint or Enid Flora Balint-Edmonds (1 December 1903 – 19 July 1994) was a British psychoanalyst and welfare worker.

Life

Enid Flora Albu was born on 1 December 1903 in London. Her early education was at Hampstead High School and

Cheltenham Ladies College Cheltenham Ladies' College is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls' schools nationally, the school was established in 1853 to pr ...

. Albu took a degree in economics at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, graduating in 1925. She had two daughters following her marriage to

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

Professor Robert Eicholtz (later Eccles) on the 25 March 1925.Enid Balint
Women Psychoanalysts in Great Britain, Pschoanalytikerinnen.org, Retrieved 5 December 2015 During and after the war, Enid had much to do with the organisation and administration of the Family Welfare Association and Citizens' Advice Bureaux, helping families who lost their homes during the bombing. She had specialised in public administration whilst at university. With her experience of the dislocations suffered by families during the war, she undertook additional study of psychoanalysis in 1948 under John Rickman. In 1948 she helped to found the Family Discussion Bureau, later Tavistock Relationships, in order to train social workers needed for family counselling., After Rickman's death in 1951, she continued her studies with

Donald Winnicott Donald Woods Winnicott (7 April 1896 – 25 January 1971) was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology. He was a leading member of the Briti ...

, who became a strong influence on her. Her marriage to Eicholtz ended in 1952. During this time she started to work with

Michael Balint , , image = Monte Verità Gedenktafel Michael Balint 1K4A4638-b.jpg , caption = , birth_name = Mihály Maurice Bergsmann , birth_date = , birth_place = Budapest , death_date = , death_place = London , occupation = psychoan ...

and they married on 2 January 1953. Her new husband was known for his academic study of the doctor-patient relationship. Today it is considered that he and Enid had an equal influence of the scientific understanding of this important relationship. They worked together lectures and attending conferences and together they wrote several books. They developed the idea of treating a married couples who had issues, separately but in parallel, with the husband and the wife having different therapists. Enid was in charge of the training and research course for general practitioners at the Tavistock Clinic until 1965. In 1968 she gave a lecture which was later published as ''The Possibilities of Patient-Centered Medicine''. Michael Balint died on New Year's Eve in 1970 in Bristol and after his death until 1974 she directed of the

British Psychoanalytical Society The British Psychoanalytical Society was founded by the British neurologist Ernest Jones as the London Psychoanalytical Society on 30 October 1913. It is one of two organizations in Britain training psychoanalysts, the other being the British ...

(now Institute of Psychoanalysis). A volume of her papers, ''Before I was I: Psychoanalysis and the Imagination'', was published in 1993. She married again in 1976, to Robin H.G. Edmonds retired diplomat and historian, but continued to practise. She died in 1994. Under her leadership a number of Balint organisations developed in several countries including an International Balint Organisation. The UK Balint Organisation was founded in 1969 to continue the work begun by Michael and Enid Balint in the 1950s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balint, Enid 1903 births 1994 deaths People from London British psychoanalysts Alumni of the London School of Economics British science writers British women writers