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Published on: November 1, 2007
Michael Balint's Word Trail: The 'Ocnophil', the 'Philobat' and Creative Dyads
1RALUCA SOREANU, PhD, is Wellcome Trust Fellow in Medical Humanities at the Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck College, London and psychoanalyst, effective member of Círculo Psicanalítico do Rio de Janeiro. She holds a PhD in Sociology, from University College London, and is the author of Working-through Collective Wounds: Trauma, Denial, Recognition in the Brazilian Uprising (Palgrave, 2018). Address for correspondence: Raluca Soreanu, PhD, Department of Psychosocial Studies, School of Social Science, History and Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London, 26 Russell Square, Room 230, Bloomsbury, London, WC1B 5DQ, UK.
Abstract:
In this paper, I discuss how Michael Balint arrived at the concepts of 'ocnophil' and 'philobat', which refer to two kinds of object relations. I look at the correspondence between Balint and the classical scholar David Eichholz. The two crafted these words together in a passionate exchange of letters. By recognizing the importance of creative dyads in psychoanalysis, we gain more insight into the creation of psychoanalytic knowledge beyond the frame of individual authorship. I read the collaboration between Balint and Eichholz in its historical and theoretical context, particularly in relation to the Budapest School of psychoanalysis, where intellectual collaborations had an important place. The Budapest School was Michael Balint's first home, and it shaped his epistemic and psychoanalytic style. Balint constructed his psychoanalytic theories in a spirit of openness, maintaining a commitment to conversations between psychoanalysis and other disciplines.
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