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Michael Balint, who used to be known the world over, no longer gets either the fame or the influence that he deserves, and the three special issues of the journal devoted to him are meant to contribute to make him better known. I intend to draw a portrait of Balint-it will necessarily be only an outline, within the limits of the present issue-and to follow his path as a man and as a scholar.
KEY WORDS: school of Budapest; conversion to Unitarianism-exile; Balint group-new beginning.
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA Budapest
Mihaly Bergsmann (1896-1970) was of Hungarian origin; he became a British citizen after the war, but was born in Budapest. His father, Dr. Ignac Bergsmann, practiced as a municipal physician in Jozsefvdras, a section of Pest inhabited by small businessmen. He spent his childhood with his younger sister, Emmi, who was to become a great mathematician, his mother, who had little formal education but was a soft, life-loving woman, and his father, a stern Orthodox Jew. The father was quick to flare up, and his fits of anger would frighten his son, who would find refuge with neighbors. As a teenager, Mihaly wished to face and even confront his father, but he never really succeeded in communicating with him. Later, in the 1920s, his father even ceased all relationship with Mihaly and his newly founded family because he could not forgive him his conversion to the Unitarian church.
Balint spent his formative years studying hard. He had a sharp, vivid mind, was curious about everything, and became a well-read schoolboy, which did not keep him from playing some tricks on the city authorities.
He soon possessed a fine understanding of science, art, and religion, which he acquired before entering University. He studied medicine, mathematics, chemistry, and biochemistry simultaneously, as if to achieve-so his son John suggests-a Renaissance ideal. In 1914, his medical studies were interrupted by the war, but he took them up again after he suffered a wound in his thumb in 1915.
Toward 1918, he had a job as an assistant in a laboratory of hygienics. That same year he fell in love with Alice Szekely-Kovacs, which changed his life completely. Alice was a student in ethnology; she was very keen on psychoanalysis...