Emerita Councilor - Kathy Knowlton
When Kathy Knowlton attended one of the early leadership training Intensives in Santa Rosa, Lee Scheingold, one of her Seattle colleagues and Intensive faculty, warned the faculty to watch out for Kathy—she was brilliant and would make a dynamite leader. None of us knew how true that would be.
Ever innovative, ever knowledgeable, and ever more welcoming to all, Kathy has facilitated a myriad of highly successful Balint groups, and through her governance, she has furthered the Society’s mission impressively. Kathy has practiced psychoanalytic psychotherapy, authored Balint-themed papers and books, hosted numerous Intensives and served as a faculty member at many others, developed and improved the ABS website, instituted improved organization-wide accountability and communication, recruited Brandeis University MBA candidates as fellows with the ABS for community engagement, mentored many of us, and pivoted all the Society’s functions to virtual with the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Kathy is educated as a clinical psychologist, obtaining her PhD at the University of Nebraska in 1985. She worked for many years in a solo practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, from which she recently retired. Beginning in 1995 she brought her considerable skills to bear on learning the Balint method, first self-taught from reading Balint’s work, and then applied in solo leadership of a family medicine group at the University of Washington. Soon she and her co-leader Robbie Sherman attended their first Intensive in Portland (2001). They became yearly attendees at Intensives on the west coast, leading to credentialed status with Ann Sinclair’s supervision in 2010. She hosted five Intensives in Seattle from 2008 to 2020, quickly becoming central to the training of a generation of Balint leaders; from 2011 to 2013 she was also Coordinator of Intensives for the Society.
Once involved, she has fulfilled many offices within the ABS. A Council member since 2009, Kathy was elected Secretary in 2013, then President from 2019 to 2021. Not content to merely fulfill the duties of these offices, she also helped design the first ABS website and propelled the appointment of the Society’s fine, first executive administrator. Seeing the gaps in opportunities for collegiality and participation in the Society outside of the traditional Credentialing and Intensive pathways, Kathy co-chaired the first three National Meetings, and enriched the Council with Brandeis University fellows’ participation.
Kathy has contributed greatly to the academic mission of the Balint movement as well. She co-authored Restoring the Core of Clinical Practice: what is a Balint group and how does it help? with Laurel Milberg and has presented at several national conferences.
Kathy readily thanks her participation in Balint for personal growth and fellowship. Balint work has nearly gotten me over a lifelong habit of flying solotaught me worlds about being in groups that really work and help each other(and) given me a kind of indelible optimism about relationships, since it has shown me you may meet a new, dear friend anytime, at any age.
As we conclude this nomination for Kathy Knowlton’s induction into the ranks of ABS emeritus councilors, we note how the through line of her creativity, inclusiveness, and persistence has enriched our society. How else could that be for someone who, as our pandemic wartime past-president, continues to lead the very same Balint group that she initiated in 1995?