Balint-Ly Obvious: The Value of Balint Groups in Medical Education
Roshni Bahri, Ahmad Kamal Mohamad, Sian Davies, Azjad Elmubarak

TL;DR
This paper explores how Balint Groups help medical students improve empathy and clinical skills during psychiatry placements.
Contribution
The study introduces a novel Balint Group scheme for 4th-year medical students, the first of its scale and scope.
Findings
Students scored highest in Mirroring, indicating improved self-awareness and empathy.
Transference scores were higher than Emotional and Cognitive Learning scores.
Results suggest Balint Groups positively impact clinical insight and patient care.
Abstract
Aims: In collaboration with Birmingham Medical School, Birmingham Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust (BSMHFT) Clinical Teaching Academy piloted a novel Balint Group (BG) scheme for 4th-year medical students during their psychiatry placement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time BGs have been accessible to 460 students in one year, and to every student attending psychiatry placement. Research shows that empathy declines in medical students as they progress through their career. However, BGs are known to improve student empathy and support the development of a clinical identity, yet no research has assessed whether through the process of Balint, students successfully gain skills in transference, emotional and cognitive learning, and case mirroring in group dynamics. Methods: All 4th-year students participated in weekly BG sessions during their placement. Upon…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsTransactional Analysis in Psychotherapy · Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
