Let me map this out in three layers so the Balint–Klein–decolonial loop becomes clear.
1. Balint’s “New Beginning” and Its Clinical Justification
Balint’s notion of a new beginning emerges from his work on the basic fault—a deep, early developmental rupture where the infant’s needs were not adequately met, leaving a structural weakness in the personality. For Balint:
- Regression to the basic fault is necessary when the patient’s adult life keeps repeating the same relational impasses.
- The therapist’s task is to provide conditions where the patient can re-experience the original rupture safely and—this time—receive an adequate response.
- This adequate response functions as a belated repair, not in the form of verbal explanation or apology, but as a lived, embodied corrective environment.
Thus, the new beginning is not a magical erasure of history—it is the first genuine “meeting” that should have happened long ago. Its ethical force lies in doing now what should have been done then, without pretending the original failure did not occur.
2. The Klein & Decolonial Analogy
- In your earlier analogy, Klein’s unspoken or absent apology to her daughter mirrors the colonizer’s lack of apology to the colonized.
- Without that act of acknowledgment, the relational wound loops endlessly—the “past” remains as a living fault-line.
- Balint’s model reframes the absent apology: instead of merely demanding a verbal recognition (which may never come or may come too late), the work becomes enacting the missing act in the present—not as words, but as a lived gesture that answers the old deprivation.
Here, new beginning = apology enacted through practice—for instance, a present-day act of equitable partnership, reparation, or protection, done in the spirit of what should have happened originally.
3. The Decolonial Dilemma: Who Can Be the “Therapist”?
Here’s where your question cuts to the nerve: in decolonial therapy, the would-be therapist is almost always themselves shaped by the colonial wound—thus part of the same ecology of injury.
- In psychoanalysis: The therapist is not “untouched” by human vulnerability; what matters is the capacity to hold and work within asymmetry without exploitation.
- In decolonial work: The therapist–patient asymmetry is compounded by shared histories of domination and survival, making neutrality impossible.
Two implications:
- Therapist as fellow survivor – The “cure” does not depend on being historically untainted but on being able to inhabit the other’s wound without turning it into one’s own theatre.
- Therapy as co-regression – The regression Balint speaks of may need to be mutual: both therapist and patient revisit the colonial wound-space, not to dissolve into shared injury, but to witness and co-create the first truly decolonial meeting.
If we extend Balint’s ethics here, the new beginning in decolonial contexts would mean:
- Not waiting for the colonizer’s apology.
- Not erasing the colonial past in the name of “moving on.”
- Instead, enacting the missing recognition now, within the lived practices of justice, reciprocity, and refusal of re-subjugation—by people who may themselves still carry the colonial imprint, but are willing to use their position to make the “first real meeting” possible.
If you want, I can diagram this so the Balint–Klein–decolonial triad is visually mapped as overlapping loops, showing how “new beginning” functions as an enacted rather than verbalized apology. That might make the ethical mechanics even sharper.
