21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Paper
The Consolidation of Different Dimensions of Diversity and the Neglect of Educational Tasks: Relations between Social Exclusion and Institutional Defence
Wilfried Datler1,2, Margit Datler1,3
1University of Vienna, Austria; 2Austrian Association of Individual Psychology (ÖVIP); 3Wiener Arbeitskreis für Psychoanalyse (WAP)
Presenting Author: Datler, Wilfried;
Datler, Margit
Educational institutions sometimes emphatically declare that they are working on particular tasks with a lot of effort and energy. A closer look, however, shows sometimes that in reality the opposite happens. The presenters discuss the question of how this phenomenon can be understood.
In doing so, they refer to an example of a school that initially welcomes unaccompanied young refugees. Subsequently, however, the school does not succeed in fulfilling its educational tasks.
The discussion of a teacher’s reports lead to the assumption that the school failed in dealing with two dimensions of diversity: (a) the diversity among the pupils and the other children and (b) the diversity the school situation has been experienced within a broad spectrum between proclaimed intentions and conscious as well as unconscious anxieties. This assumption is developed with reference to psychoanalytic theories, especially with reference to the psychoanalytic theory of human relations and theories about the unconcious dynamics in organisations. Subsequently, the assumption is presented that - and in which way - institutionalised defence dynamics are significantly involved in the emergence of such processes. Finally implications for education and training as well as for the administration (leadership) of educational institutions are outlined.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe case material has been presented and discussed in a Viennese work discussion group. According to the process of analysing observational case material in three phases, the work discussion protocols and accounts written after each work discussion session were discussed again in several national and international contextes. With reference to psychoanalytic theories concerning organisational dynamics case material and theory based assumtions were developed and compared with results of similar case studies which were published in Great britain, Germany and Austria.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe results of the case study support these powerful findings on the influence of unconscious dynamic processes that negatively affect the work on primary educational tasks in institutions. In addition to other publications, not only processes of splitting but also processes of isolation are examined. New references to dealing with diversity are highlighted and linked to considerations concerning training and development of educational organisations.
ReferencesAmstrong, David/Rustin, Michael (eds.) (2014): Social Defences against Anxiety. London: Routledge.
Boger, Mai-Anh/Rauh, Bernhard (Hrsg.) (2021): Psychoanalytische Pädagogik trifft Postkoloniale Studien und Migrationspädagogik. Schriftenreihe der DGfE-Kommission Psychoanalytische Pä-dagogik, Bd. 12. Opladen et al.: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Datler, Wilfried/Datler, Margit (2014): Was ist Work Discussion? https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/view/o:368997 [Zugriff: 12.1.2023]
Datler, Wilfried/Tomandl, Christine (2015): Psychagogik in der Schule: Über ein Subsystem zur Be-treuung von Schülerinnen und Schülern mit erheblichen emotionalen und sozialen Problemen. In: Biewer, Gottfried/ Böhm, Eva Theresa/Schütz, Sandra (Hrsg.): Inklusive Pädagogik in der Se-kundarstufe. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, S. 75-93.
Heilmann, Joachim/Krebs, Heinz/Eggert-Schmid Noerr, Annelinde (Hrsg.) (2012): Außenseiter in-tegrieren. Perspektiven auf gesellschaftliche, institutionelle und individuelle Ausgrenzung. Psy-choanalytische Pädagogik, Bd.39. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag.
Holtmann, Sophie/Pierre-Carl Damian Link (2020): Psychoanalytische Pädagogik im Kontext von Flucht und Traumatisierung. In: Zimmermann, David/Wininger, Michael/Finger-Trescher, Urte (Hrsg.) (2020): Migration, Flucht und Wandel. Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Pädagogik 27. Gie-ßen: Psychosozial-Verlag, S. 241-262.
Jung, Carl Gustav (1954): Über die Archetypen des kollektiven Unbewussten. In: Jung, Carl Gustav: Bewusstes und Unbewusstes. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1971, S. 11-53.
Lohmer, Mathias/Möller, Heidi (2014): Psychoanalyse in Organisationen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Müller, Christoph (2020): “Es gibt keine Sprachklassen mehr, weil man gesagt hat, nein, die Kinder sollen wirklich inklusiv beschult werde.“ Die (pseudo-)inklusive Schule im sequenziell traumati-schen Prozess. In: Zimmermann, David/Wininger, Michael/Finger-Trescher, Urte (Hrsg.) (2020): Migration, Flucht und Wandel. Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Pädagogik 27. Gießen: Psychoso-zial-Verlag, S. 221-238.
Rohr, Elisabeth (2020): Flucht als Trennungserfahrung und der pädagogische Umgang mit unbeglei-teten minderjährigen Geflüchteten. In: Zimmermann, David/Wininger, Michael/Finger-Trescher, Urte (Hrsg.) (2020): Migration, Flucht und Wandel. Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Pä-dagogik 27. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, S. 107-122.
Rustin, Margaret/Bradly, Jonathan (Ed.) (2009): Work Discussion: Learning from Reflective Practice in Work with Children and Families. London: Karnac
Steinhardt, Kornelia/Datler, Wilfried (2005): Organisation und Psychodynamik. Psychoanalytische Überlegungen zur Wahrnehmung von Leitungsaufgaben. In: Fasching, H., Lange, R. (Hrsg.): sozi-al managen. Bern u.a.: Haupt Verlag, S. 213-23.
Zimmermann, David (2012): Die subjektive und soziale Fremdheit. Das Erleben traumatisierter Ju-gendlicher mit Zwangsmigrationshintergrund. In: Heilmann, Joachim/Krebs, Heinz/Eggert-Schmid Noerr, Annelinde (Hrsg.) (2012): Außenseiter integrieren. Perspektiven auf gesellschaft-liche, institutionelle und individuelle Ausgrenzung. Psychoanalytische Pädagogik, Bd.39. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, S .347-363.
Zimmermann, David/Wininger, Michael/Finger-Trescher, Urte (Hrsg.) (2020): Migration, Flucht und Wandel. Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Pädagogik 27. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag.
21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Long Paper
Face-to-face or Online Clinical Interview for Research in Education: Diversity Issues
Patrick Geffard1, Arnaud Dubois2
1Paris 8 University, France; 2Rouen Normandy University, France
Presenting Author: Geffard, Patrick;
Dubois, Arnaud
The long paper focuses on diversity issues encountered in the context of research in education made during the 3rd lockdown – April 3 to May 19, 2021–, when COVID-19 infection was increasing.
The pandemic crisis led many researchers used to conduct clinical interviews for purpose of research in a face-to-face situation to continue their research in a new way by using online interviews through communications platforms. That unusual situation brought some interrogations on the methodical level as well as it sometimes brought uncertainty or anxiety about the process of the clinical interviews and the effects that an experience never made before could have on the research results, on the analysis produced.
First, we will define what a clinical interview is in our research, how we usually organise the ‘apparatus’ of our interviews and what is our positioning as researcher.
In a second time, we will come back to an experience of online clinical interviews with music teachers and, more specifically, the experience made with one of them. From this, we will evoke some new questions emerging in that unusual context.
The research concerned by this presentation has been built on clinical interviews made with music teachers in training in a higher education institution in the field of artistic practices in the performing arts.
At the request of the director of the institution, who wish to enrich the courses delivered with contributions of research in Education Sciences, a team of five researchers has been organised, each of the researcher having to conduct some clinical interviews with the music teachers in training. Trying ‘to do the best of a bad job’ (Bion, 1979), the first movement of the researchers has been to try to stay as close as possible from a so-called classic situation by making the choice of analysing only the audio recordings without taking into account what had been seen on the screen during the interviews.
Therefore, the working document on which the analysis was supposed to be produced was the transcription of what the interviewee had said during the clinical interview. That point in itself questions the positioning of the researchers more than the nature of the collected data. In the aftermath of the research, it has conducted researchers to realise there was a necessity to think more carefully about what they tried to keep from their previous experiences of clinical interviews or what kind of mechanism of defence could have been at stake with such a choice.
In the paper we come back more specifically to one of the interviews, made with a music teacher in training called here Myriam who surprised the interviewer by the way she introduced her very young baby in the situation of the interview. The interview framework allowed her to do so since nothing had been said before about the possibility or not to continue the interview while breastfeeding a child… The baby’s presence was then perceived through non-verbal elements.
While in a more usual context, researcher and interviewee are living in what J. Puget called ‘fragments of the world’ (Puget and Wender, 2021), quite isolated from each other. It seems that during this pandemic, the irruption of ‘data and problems that belonged to the external reality of the moment’ brought the two in presence closer from each other in ‘overlapping worlds’ (Ibid.). In this paper, we’ll examine the parts of fantasies possibly at stake around the question of ‘feeding’ for someone who is both a mother and a successful music teacher in training.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedOur approach takes place within the framework of the ‘psychoanalytically orientated clinical approach in education and training’ (Blanchard-Laville, Chaussecourte, Pechberty and Hatchuel, 2005). According to this perspective, our listening aims above all to initiate a process of understanding some psychological mechanisms at work in ordinary teaching or training situations.
But the research process itself can sometimes be an object of research. In our case, it’s the setting of the clinical interviews for the purpose of research which is examined. Due to the specific circumstances of the pandemic crisis, like many other researchers we experienced a kind of diversity we didn’t have imagined before. To be interviewing someone in a face-to-face situation is quite different to trying to do an interview through an application, seeing the other on a screen.
This research on the online clinical interview has been helped by the collaboration we have since a few years with colleagues in Europe who are also engaged in works which make links between education and psychoanalysis (Strategic Partnership EducEurope with colleagues from Milano Bicocca University, University College London, Luxembourg University, 2017-2020 – Works in Network 21 with colleagues of Humboldt University Berlin and Vienna University).
By confronting our ways to organise clinical interviews, the references we use in that specific methodology, we’ve learned about how European history in the 20th century has led to various ways of practice even when the first sources were the same or very close to each other. But also our attention has been driven to how the specific setting put in place, the frame of the interview influences what we collect as data and how we proceed at the moment of the analysis of the data. Our paper will focus on some questions or issues referring to the frame of a research clinical interview.
Trying to think what had happened during those online clinical interviews, we had to conduct without much time of preparation, we base our own reflection on the work of some psychoanalysts who have practised and theorised in different geographical areas (J. Bleger and J. Puget, Argentina; T. Ogden and T. Bibby, U.K.; J. Godfrind, Belgium, R. Roussillon and P. Chaussecourte, France). Despite the differences between these authors, we use their works on mainly two points: what kind of attention for who conducts a research clinical interview and what is the relationship between its frame and the transference phenomena?
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe first finding in our research on the online clinical interviews we organised during the COVID-19 crisis is how the specific frame we had to put in place at this specific occasion seems to have been some kind of an ‘attractor’ for psychic investments, for transferential movements. The psychoanalyst José Bleger saw the frame as the repository of primitive symbiotic bonds, as ‘the most primitive part of the personality’ (Bleger, 1967, 248).
In our analysis of the clinical research interview presented in this paper, we propose the hypothesis that Myriam could have transferred onto the medium constituted by the connected devices, the video conferencing application and the researcher himself, the most primitive part of her personality represented by the baby she introduced in the situation, keeping him in her arms after a short break when she breastfeed him.
In an approach related to Bleger’s, the Belgian psychoanalyst Jacqueline Godfrind has suggested an interesting distinction between two types of frames, the one she calls the ‘inanimate frame’ and the one she calls the ‘embodied frame’. The inanimate frame is ‘the set of material arrangements included in the initial contract: schedule, fees, place [...] of the analytic meetings. The embodied frame concerns the analyst and his/her psyche’ (2021, 156).
In the case of research-based clinical interviews transformed by the lockdown, this distinction appears useful to us when analysing what may have been at stake, for the interviewer as well as for the interviewee, on the side of the inanimate frame and the side of the embodied frame.
The experience of the online interviews has reinforced our interest for the notion of ‘transference on the framework’ suggested by René Roussillon (2007) and we consider it as a heuristic tool for thinking the transference and countertransference issues in a clinical research interview.
ReferencesBibby, T. (2011). Education – an ‘impossible profession’? Psychoanalytic explorations of learning and classrooms. Routledge.
Blanchard-Laville, C. & Nadot, S. (2000). Malaise dans la formation des enseignants. L’Harmattan.
Blanchard-Laville, C., Chaussecourte, P., Hatchuel, F. et Pechberty, B. (2005). Recherches cliniques d’orientation psychanalytique dans le champ de l’éducation et de la formation. Note de synthèse. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 151, 111-162.
Blanchet, A. et coll. (1985). L’entretien dans les sciences sociales. Dunod-Bordas.
Bleger, J. (1967) Psicoanálisis del encuadre psicoanalítico. Revista de Psicoanálisis, 24, 241-258.
Bourguignon, O. (1995). Le processus de recherche. Dans O. Bourguignon et M. Bydlowski (dir.) La recherche clinique en psychopathologie. Perspectives critiques (p. 35-51). PUF.
Cahn, R. (1999). Psychothérapies des névroses et des psychoses. Dans A. de Mijolla et S. de Mijolla-Meilor (dir), Psychanalyse (p. 579-602). PUF.
Castarède, M.-F. (2007). L’entretien clinique à visée de recherche. In C. Chiland (dir.), L’entretien clinique (p. 118-145). PUF.
Chaussecourte, P. (2022). Entretien clinique de recherche et prise en compte des phénomènes insus. In B. Albero & J. Thievenaz (Eds). Enquêter dans les métiers de l’humain. Traité de méthodologie de la recherche en sciences de l’éducation et de la formation (p. 213-222). Éditions Raison et Passions.
Devereux, G. (1967). From Anxiety to Method in Behavioral Sciences. De Gruyter Mouton.
Godfrind, J. (2021). Quand le cadre chavire. Revue belge de psychanalyse, 78, 153-167.
Markakis, K. (2022). Écrire-rêver le rapport à la pratique professionnelle d’un coordonnateur d’ULIS collège : la répétition d’une réalité inrêvée. Estilos da Clínica, 27/3, 451-465.
Ogden, T. (2005). This Art of Psychoanalysis: Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Interrupted Cries. Routledge.
Puget, J. & Wender, L. (2021). Analyste et patient dans des mondes superposés. In Monica Horovitz et Piotr Krzakowski (Eds), Écrits intimes de psychanalystes pendant la pandémie. Journal de voyage en confinia (p. 31-47). L’Harmattan.
Roussillon, R. (2007). Le cadre psychanalytique. PUF.
Yelnik, C. (2005). L’entretien clinique de recherche en sciences de l’éducation. Recherche et formation, 50, 133-146.
21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Paper
Group Analysis in Educational Research and Practice – Practice Experiences
Lars Dietrich, Petra Weber
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Presenting Author: Dietrich, Lars;
Weber, Petra
Today, psychoanalysis looks back on a long-lasting tradition of impacting educational theory and practice. In fact, from its very inception psychoanalytic thinking has been applied to educational settings (e.g., Freud, 1914; Freud, 1960). However, despite a long and very rich tradition, psychoanalysis in education remains a niche area in educational research and practice in Europe (Taubman, 2011). In academia, it has been almost entirely pushed out of the mainstream of educational research, with the exception of special needs education.
In this presentation, we argue that today there is an opportunity opening up for psychoanalytic thinking to (re-)emerge from the margins of educational research and practice. In the course of the past two decades, there has been a growing acknowledgment that social-emotional learning and development is a crucial part of a modern educational experience (CASEL, 2023), and an essential precondition for more effective academic/cognitive learning, and the advancement of meta-cognitive skills (Pianta, 2012). At the same time, meta-analyses of social-emotional learning/development program evaluations, based on theories and methods of the educational sciences’ mainstream, show only small effects (Corcoran et al., 2018). From a psychoanalytic perspective this is hardly surprising, because most of these programs resort to behavioral condition strategies that ignore latent/unconscious factors impacting human development. Hence, an opportunity is opening up for psychoanalysis in education to show that it can deliver better results.
However, in order to be successful, psychoanalysis in education needs to accept the methods and quality standards, which currently dominate the mainstream of educational sciences, despite their obvious limitations. Specifically, psychoanalysis in education needs to work with and show appreciation for the methods and contributions of quantitative empiricism with its focus on social ecological factors impacting development, and integrate them – which is not the same as giving up its traditional focus on qualitative and in-depth analyses of the unconscious. Initial successful and encouraging steps in this direction have been made in clinical psychoanalysis (Fonagy & Bateman, 2013).
This presentation focuses on our first attempts to bridge the gap between psychoanalysis in education and quantitative empiricism in educational research and practice. From our point of view, group analysis (Foulkes, 1983; Bion, 1991), which combines psychoanalytic and social-ecological/sociological theory and thinking, is the best-suited practice and methods framework for this endeavor. In early 2022, we began working as group analytic coaches in schools. Specifically, we have provided group analytic supervision sessions in two schools in the greater Berlin metropolitan area. In the course of this work, we have also developed a new student survey instrument, which has been theoretically derived from psychoanalytic and group analytic theory (e.g., Hirblinger, 2017; Naumann, 2014). The purpose of this instrument is to support teachers' self-reflective practices in the context of group analytic school coaching and professional development training.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedOur group analytic coaching with schools is mainly based on theories from Foulkes (1983) and Bion (1991).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings-This presentation summarizes our first year and a half of highly encouraging practical experiences as group analytic coaches in schools in the greater Berlin metropolitan area.
-The results of the newly developed survey instrument will be presented in detail in a different network.
ReferencesBion, W. R. (1991). Experiences in groups and other papers. New York, NY: Routledge.
Corcoran, R. P., Cheung, A. C. K., Kim, E., & Xie, C. (2018). Effective universal school-based social and emotional learning programs for improving academic achievement: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 50 years of research. Educational Research Review, 25, 56-72. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2017.12.001
Fonagy, P., & Bateman, A. (2013). A brief history of mentalization-based treatment and its roots in psychoanalytic theory and practice. In M. B. Heller & S. Pollet (Eds.), The work of psychoanalysts in the public health sector (pp. 168-188). New York, NY: Routledge.
Foulkes, S. H. (1983). Introduction to group-analytic psychotherapy: Studies in the social integration of individuals and groups. New York, NY: Routledge.
Freud, A. (1960). Psychoanalysis for teachers and parents. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Freud, S. (1970). Zur Psychologie des Gymnasiasten (1914). In A. Mitscherlich, A. Richards, & J. Strachey (Eds.), Sigmund Freud Studienausgabe (Band IV): Psychologische Schriften. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag.
Hirblinger, H. (2017). Lehrerbildung aus psychoanalytisch-pädagogischer Perspektive [teacher education from a psychoanalytic-pedagogical perspective]. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag.
Naumann, T. M. (2014). Gruppenanalytische Pädagogik: Eine Einführung in Theorie und Praxis [group analytic pedagogy: An introduction to theory and practice]. Gießen: Psychosozialverlag.
Pianta, R. C., Hamre, B. K., & Allen, J. P. (2012). Teacher-student relationships and engagement: Conceptualizing, measuring, and improving the capacity of classroom interactions. In S. L. Christenson, A. L. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement. New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media.
Taubman, P. M. (2011). Disavowed Knowledge. Psychoanalysis, Education, and Teaching. New York, NY: Routledge.
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