Changes in the attitude of general practitioners as a result of participation in a Balint group

An investigation was carried out in an attempt to measure whether there were any limited changes in a doctor's personality as a result of participation in a Balint group. Twenty-two general practitioners applied originally to join two Balint groups. After two years the groups had been combined and only eight doctors were still participating. A questionnaire was designed in order to measure changes in personality. The conclusion was that the personality of the doctor did not change fundamentally as a result of participating in a Balint group. But, it could be said that working in the group gradually lead the participants to deal with their patients in a different and more competent manner. The participants became aware of the fact that patients were much more problematical than they originally thought. In the end the participants were able to deal with this insight in a competent way. It emerged from the investigation that a considerable shift had taken place in the type of patients with whom the doctor said they had difficulty. There were some characteristics of patients--an average of 5.13 per doctor--with which the doctors had difficulty at both the beginning and at the end of the course; an average of 6.38 characteristics had disappeared, but their place had been taken by an average 3.25 other characteristics. At an individual level the differences were extremely large.