The psychotherapy clinical seminar at the Maudsley Hospital

Abstract

The open psychotherapy clinical seminar at the Maudsley Hospital is a weekly teaching event in which psychiatric trainees can present a case from their general psychiatric work to a forum chaired by a consultant psychotherapist. The seminar has a history stretching back to the 1960s when Heinz Wolff, Henri Rey and Murray Jackson taught in the Maudsley Psychotherapy Unit. The seminar is currently chaired by Nicholas Temple. It draws on a tradition of teaching psychotherapy which owes much to the pioneering work of Michael Balint. The psychotherapy training seminar which he developed is well described in the appendix to The Doctor, his Patient and the Illness (Balint, 1957). A trainee presents a case with particular emphasis on his or her feelings about the patient. The trainee's counter-transference is used as the raw material for the seminar's discussion of the patient. Balint adopted this method for teaching psychotherapy to a variety of professionals including social workers, general practitioners, and medical students. As Pedder (1986) pointed out, it is a model which has been very influential in British psychotherapy training.