21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Paper
Teachers Facing Adolescent Uncertainty
Dominique Méloni-Johnson
UPJV, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France
Presenting Author: Méloni-Johnson, Dominique
Adolescence is an emblematic time of testing uncertainty. Bodily transformations in fact cause a chain of destabilization which re-engages the subjective position and blurs the benchmarks established in childhood (Gutton, 1996). The child knows that his body will transform, nevertheless the arrival of puberty surprises and requires a psychological elaboration (Deutsch, 1996). The illusion of childhood, with its dream of omnipotence and access to flawless happiness, is undermined by the experiences of life. In correlation with these upheavals, the guarantee of knowledge of the Other, represented by the adult, is shattered. Its reliability becomes doubtful, while its flaws become more noticeable. However, the certainties of childhood regarding values, the validity of rules or customs, and even about one's own place within the community begin to fade away. Back to/confronted with to the question of “Who am I?” the adolescent is consequently no longer assured of his future prospects, in a world still marked by multiple crises.
Yet, it is precisely and paradoxically at this moment of characterized confusion, marked by a loss of internal and external reference points, that the adolescent must make fundamental choices that will shape their future in social and emotional aspects. At times gripped by anxiety, they may seek refuge in their daydreams to cope with the instability they experience, before being able to overcome it (Ikiz & Houssier, 2021), to open up to encounters, to construct their future (Lacan, 1974). For this time of psychological disorganization induces a reorganization. Ultimately, adolescence leads to grappling with the inherent uncertainty that is part of our condition as suject. The construction of the orientation project offers an opportunity to initially experiment with ways of envisioning oneself in the future, then to act on one's choices to affirm one's desire and rediscover a form of identity in which to recognize oneself and be recognized by others (Méloni, 2023).
Nevertheless, studies on educational and professional guidance, such as the guidance policies of different countries within the European community (France, UK, Italy...) or beyond, in the West, in Latin America and North Africa in particular, primarily focus on the choice made or to be made. Staying closely attuned to social reality, they underestimate the implications of the adolescent journey in the choice of their orientation on one's mental health (Méloni, 2016). The guidance education is understood as the learning of identifying educational paths, careers, as well as understanding one's personality traits, preferences, and the development of decision-making processes etc. The uncertainty of adolescence thus seems destined to be mastered before being genuinely heard, without the adolescent finding a space for listening.
The adolescent's tumult, their fragility, the risks they face or pose often preoccupy adults. While educational spaces serve as a privileged scene for the expression of their inner life (Karray, 2022), the psycological resonance of concrete educational situations, such as orientation milestones, struggles to be heard.
Recognizing this gap between the increasing experience of uncertainty for adolescents during moments of career choices and the tendency of orientation policies to limit the spaces where the uncertainty could be addressed, this paper will offer a reflection from the perspectives of teachers responsible for guiding the orientation process. How, when they encounter daily situations that challenge the predictability expected by guidance policies, do they approach the question of guidance with adolescents who are inevitably subjected to the principle of uncertainty?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedTraditionally, research on guidance primarly aims to understand how to “properly guide” students. Their lived experiences are not considered in and off themselves. Therefore, my work focuses on this overlooked area. The paper will introduce a study on the teachers’ experience, aligned with educational research referencing psychoanalysis.
The established framework is a discursive one, aimed at teachers' statement of their subjective position, comprising 20 interviews with teachers, most of which were received twice, as well as 6 discussion groups. The methodology and analysis of the interviews refer to the psychoanalytic corpus. The context nevertheless imposed an adaptation of the “interview technique”, since the interviews were conducted as part of research in an educational institution, and not as part of an analytical practice. Nevertheless, these adaptations have retained one of the fundamental principles of psychoanalysis, namely, facilitating and collecting the narratives of teachers about their experiences. Therefore the interviews were nondirective, encouraging associations and elaborations, while 2 discussion groups referred to the psychoanalytic conversation (Miller, 2020) and two others drew inspiration from the methodology of photo-language, fostering expression through image mediation.
The use of psychoanalysis proves particularly fruitful in understanding how teachers are affected by encountering adolescent uncertainty, focusing on the imaginary life, the admitted or unconfessed desire, the expectations, the ideals, and the anxiety. Ultimately, rather than looking for how to master the orientation process by reducing the amount of uncertainty, this research is interested in the treatment of uncertainty by the teacher by considering that it is an essential fact of the divided subject.
The case analysis (Visentini, 2024) extracted from the collection of interviews, such as a teacher’s situation, or a specific extract from an exchange will help to identify some salient points that demonstrate the importance of considering the unconscious in the face of the challenge posed by adolescent uncertainty.
The uniqueness of the situations encountered will involve both the cultural and social context of establishment in a remote region of Morocco in the 2020s and the individual singularity of each teacher. Without seeking to generalize the observations, the objective will consist of bringing out the implications of unconscious mechanisms in the face of uncertainty, or even, to propose a discussion on previously established theoretical framework.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe analysis will highlight the subjectivity of teachers regarding the orientation of adolescents. Certain phenomena observed in teaching situations are found (Filloux, 1987). Specificities will be presented, particularly the resurgence of their adolescent projects. With reference to the notion of screen memory, we will examine the emergence of “screen phrases”. Staging a turning point in their journey, the testimony of a phrase addressed by an adult to their adolescence, supports, in fact, the arrangement of a restorative or identifying posture to help students find their way.
This point will lead us to consider how the handling of guidance remains determined by their vision of their primary role, teaching. The uncertainty of adolescence challenges both their “educative intention” (Lacan, 1966, p. 787) and their sense of professional identity, linked to the transmission of knowledge. However, their primary discipline remains a reference point to draw upon resources for guiding students.
We will then address contemporary discomfort in the face of uncertainty. According to Freud (1930), discomfort is structural to the process of civilization which induces renunciations. However, this discomfort, involving the lack of knowledge about one's desire, currently seems unbearable for the subjects. We will observe certain consequences on orientation.
The paper will finally specify the notion of uncertainty. Revived in adolescence, uncertainty is also a common feature in the ordinary neurotic, not knowing what one wants, nor what is right. Without being preferable to it, certainty is a particularly salient trait in the paranoid, who rejects what would make it waver (Lacan, 1981). In between lies the belief in an omniscient and all-powerful Other, recognized by Freud as an illusion that education should help one free from (1927). But then, can education succeed in developing reason and encouraging venturing into the future without supporting the development of uncertainty on both sides?
ReferencesDeutsch, H. (1967). Problèmes de l’adolescence. Payot.
Freud, S. (1927/2022). The Future of an Illusion. Culturea.
Freud, S. (1930/2014). Civilization and its Discontents. Penguin Classics.
Gutton, P. (1996). Adolescens. PUF.
Filloux Jean-Claude. (19987). Note de synthèse. Psychanalyse et pédagogie ou: d'une prise en compte de l'inconscient dans le champ pédagogique. Revue française de pédagogie, 81, 69-102;
DOI: 10.3406/rfp.1987.1469
Ikiz, S. & Houssier, F. (2021). Finir l’adolescence, devenir adulte : de la rêverie au projet. Enfances & Psy, 89, 162-170.
DOI: 10.3917/ep.089.0162
Karray, A. (2022). Le sens de l’école. Cliniques des souffrances scolaires et des trajectoires créatives. In Press.
Lacan, J. (1966). Écrits. Seuil.
Lacan, J. (1974). Préface. In F. Wedekind. (dir.), L’éveil du printemps. Tragédie enfantine. Gallimard.
Lacan, J. (1955-1956/1981). Le séminaire, Livre III, Les psychoses. Paris: Seuil.
Méloni, D. (2023). O Real à prova, um momento decisivo de orientação para o futuro. Estillos da clinica, 28(3), 341-351.
Méloni, D (2016). A escolha de uma orientação vocacional: uma oportunidade de trabalho psíquico para o adolescente. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicopatologia Fundamental, 19, 647-662.
Miller, J-A. (2020) La conversation clinique. Le Champ freudien.
Visentini, G. (2024). Penser et écrire par cas en psychanalyse. L’invention freudienne d’un style de raisonnement. PUF.
21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Paper
From Fright and Powerlessness to an Ethics of the Real
Jean-Marie Weber
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Presenting Author: Weber, Jean-Marie
In a complex society in crisis, the teaching profession has become more difficult and challenging.
- The problem
Indiscipline, provocation, physical abuse, student inattention, adolescent depression, learning disabilities, bullying, various phobias and dropping out of school are symptoms that teachers are increasingly confronted with. This is particularly frightening for young teachers.
Teachers may experience a range of emotions such as aggression, fear, sadness/depression, jealousy or guilt. Sometimes they manage to suppress their questions and their suffering. In doing so, they repeatedly place themselves and possibly their pupils in agonising situations. Pushed by the death drive, they find themselves in a (self)destructive dynamic. Articulation with the life instinct becomes less and less successful.
Nevertheless, they feel that they lack a perspective, a word, a way of dealing with a lack. (Menard) They search for ways to deal with their questions, their suffering and their powerlessness.
2. A psychoanalytic view
The traumatising encounters evoke "fright" and confront the protagonists with the
with the "uncanny", as an encounter with the familiar in themselves (Freud) or, as Lacan says, with the "lack of lack".
Insofar as for Lacan (1986) the subject is structurally constituted on the basis of discourses and the desire of the other, we are all confronted with the desire and the enjoyment of the other, in the area of imaginary, symbolic and real. Again and again, we are confronted with the question "Che vuoi": what does the other want from me? Confronted with the different others, pupils ask themselves what this society, parents, teachers colleagues desire from them. The result can be anxiety, other affects and various symptoms.
Due to our constitution as subjects by the Other, the teachers' discomfort in such cases is also caused by their initially unconscious knowledge of their possible involvement in the processes that lead pupils to symptoms and acting outs of violence. This brings with it a feeling of eeriness and anxiety.
- The psychoanalytic approach
With his psychoanalytic approach, Freud found a way to trace the singular patterns of the suffering subjects through the "talking cure" in order to deconstruct phantasms, to partially give meaning to the symptoms and to allow the subject to construct previously missing perspectives on the real.
My hypothesis:
It is precisely the confrontation with the not immediately symbolisable real, the uncanny and the unconscious knowledge, that makes the teacher aware that he is on the level of the unconscious and as a represent of the “other”, thus said involved in the dynamic of the situation, a part of the process. So, he must take his part of responsibility for the situation and not simply approach it as a "master" (Brown,2006) from a neutral, "pedagogical-scientific" position. (Zizek, 1998)
Working through such frightening situations enables him to develop a freer view on the situation. This is the basic prerequisite for the pupil to be able to deconstruct fears and phantasms around "Che vuoi".
4. A setting
Building on Freud, psychoanalysts such as Balint, Kaës, Blanchard-Laville (2013) and many colleagues from Cliopsy (Geffard,2018) have organized groups to help professionals verbalize their suffering and problems in a way they have not done before. I offer and research such settings.
At the research level, the aim is to analyse
- Which transformative processes (Koller, Wultange) have been initiated in the setting, which have not and why,
- Whether the hypothesis of the awareness of the teacher's as “one other” has been always involved in the complex situation. To what extent does the participing teachers feel implicated and co-responsible for creating an atmosphere in which a dynamic of desire can unfold instead of a dynamic of destructive pleasure?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used1. The setting
In order to test the hypothesis, I developed an "analysis of one's own practice" setting.
The trainee teachers report situations in which they were surprised by themselves, in which they were shocked by themselves, ashamed or felt powerless and perhaps in which their desire and enjoyment articulated to the projections and transference of the pupils became already questionable for them.
The point is that they
• Find words to verbalise what happens to them in certain difficult situations, such
as when pupils rebel, disrupt, bully, hit, do nothing, avoid contact, fall into
depression.
• Get a sense of the implicit drive and affect structures, fictions / phantasms,
structures of pleasure and lack of desire that play a role in themselves and
possibly in their students. It is also particularly important to get a feel for their
projections, identifications and transmissions in the classroom and to put them into l. anguage.
• to develop new perspectives for themselves and their future actions, based on
their own words and the echoes of the participants.
• Approach the truth of their desire (e.g. as a teacher).
• Develop an ethic of the real (Zupancic, 2000), of responsibility, rather than simply
trying to cope with difficult situations from a neutral position by applying norms and
rules.
The analysis of one situation consists of five steps: Report of one teacher, questions from the participants, analysis by the group, summary and clarification of psychoanalytic views, follow-up in the next session. The seminar consists of five sessions of 3 hours each.
2. The research work:
To test the effects and the hypothesis
• The verbatim presentation and analysis by the group, as well as the final feedback, were noted and then transcribed.
• The interviews with the participants and the co-facilitator were also transcribed.
• The qualitative analysis of the transcripts (Jacobi, 1995; Nougué, 2003) is based on the following categories:
- Signifiers / main signifiers that stand out and enable transformation-processes
(Izcovich)
- The imaginary, the symbolic and the real
- Fictions and phantasms
- Fissures in the phantasm that served to endure impossible situations.
- Desire and instinctive pleasure
- Projections and transference between teacher and student
- Articulation of new signifiers with the main signifier and their impact on the lesson,
- Change on the level of the teacher style.
- Transference that supported or blocked the analysis process in the seminar group.
- Ethical positioning (Ruti 2015, 2018))
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOn the basis of the evaluation by the whole group, we were able to establish that this setting is very useful for moving from an attitude of powerlessness to an attitude of desire and shared responsibility. Above all, it became clear how the different aspects of the subject (Lacan), divided between the conscious and the unconscious, between desire and enjoyment, could be accepted and thus better dealt with. The triad of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real is of great importance in analyzing situations and learning to deal creatively with one's own symptoms.
By coming to terms with their desire to teach, their unconscious enjoyment of their position of power, their passion for not knowing, i.e. their blindness to students' demands and problems, the participants were able to recognize their involvement as an other, their shared responsibility. An ethics of the real, of taking responsibility in situations that can never be fully symbolized, can be partially developed. Of course, this does not mean that the students also have to take responsibility for their (sometimes unconsciously guided) actions
The differences and tensions between an ethics of desire and a morality based on norms and rules are also brought to the fore in order to deal with them in a more reflective way.
Some participants became aware of how their own phantasms lead to transference and projection. This also fostered a sense of the pupils and themselves as subjects of enjoyment, suffering and desire.
Interestingly, one could also feel what it means to develop a certain style.
ReferencesBrown, T. Atkinson, D. & England, J. Regulatory (2006). Discourses in education. A lacanian perspective. Bern, Peter Lang
Berriau, J. (2023). Apprendre à philosopher avec Lacan, Paris, Ellipses
Blanchard-Laville, Claudine (2013). Au risque d’enseigner. Paris, PUF
Clarke, M. Lacan and Education Policy. The other side of Education. London, New-York, Oxford, New delhi, Sydney, Bloomsbury Academic
Gascuel, Nils (2022) Le désir de l’enseignant. Toulous, Erès
Geffard, P. (2018). Expériences de groupes en pédagogie institutionelle, Paris, L‘Harmattan
Freud, S. (1919). Das Unheimliche. GW. XII, Frankfurt am Main, Fischer, 1999, S. 229-268
Herfray, CH. (1993). La psychanalyse hors les murs. Paris, Desclée de Brouwer
Izcovich, Luis (2023). La clinique du cas en psychanalyse, Paris, Stilus
Jacobi, B. (1995). Cent mots pour l’entretien clinique. Ramonville Sainte-Agne, Erès
Koller, H.-Ch. ; Wulftange G. (Hg.) (20014). Lebensgeschichte als Bildungsprozess? Perspektiven bildungstheoretischer Biographieforschung. Bilefeld, transcript
Lacan, J. (1986). Le Séminaire, Livre VII, L’éthique de la psychanalyse, Paris, Seuil
Lacan, J. (1991). Le Séminaire, Livre XVII, L’envers de la psychanalyse, Paris, Seuil
Lacan, J. (2001). Le Séminaire, Livre VIII, Le transfert, Paris, Seuil
Lacan, J. (2004) Le Séminaire, Livre X, L’angoisse, Paris, Seuil
Leguil, C. (2023). L’ère du toxique. Essai sur le nouveau malaise dans la civilisation. Paris, Puf
Menard, Augustin (2020). Les promesses de l’impossible. Nîmes, Champ social
Nougué Yves (2003). L’entretien clinique. Paris Anthropos
Parker, Ian (2005) Qualitative Psychology. Introducing Radical research. New-York, Open University Press
Ruti, M. (2015). Betwenn Levinas and Lacan, self, other, ethics, new-York, London, New delhi, Sidney, Bloomsbury
Ruti, M. (2018)., Distillations Theory, Ethics, Affect. New-York, London, New delhi, Sidney, Bloomsbury
Sommer-Dupont, V. & Vanderveken, Y. (2023). Enfants terribles et parents exaspérés. Paris, Navarin Editeur
Weber, Jean-Marie, Ruzhena Voynova (2021). Le Décrochage scolaire, un processus de constructions et de déconstructions. Nîmes, Edition Champ social
Weber J.-M., (2024). Das Unmögliche und seine Versprechen, nos cahiers Nr. 1.“2024, Luxembourg (im Druck)
Zizek, S. (1998). Das Unbehagen im Subjekt. Wien, Passagen Verlag
Zizek, Slavoj (2020). Sex und das Verfehlte Absolute, Darmstadt wbg. Academic
Zupancic, A. (2000). Ethics oft he Real. Kant and Lacan. London, New York, Vero
21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Paper
A Subject Supposed to Critique: Some Lacanian Provocations on Teacher Demoralisation
Henry Kwok
CUHK, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
Presenting Author: Kwok, Henry
Why are we, academics, supposed to critique? Why do our students – in-service or would-be teachers – assume that we, teacher educators, should take on the mantle of being the all-knowing experts, who should voice and critique on their behalf, against the existing order of things? In this provocative essay, I work through the idea of ‘critique’ in the scene of teacher education, through the Lacanian psychoanalytical concept of ‘subject supposed to know’ (Lacan 1978, 230). Data come from free associative interviews with demoralised teachers in my previous research project.
Lacan coined this notion of the ‘subject supposed to know’ as an operative principle of transference. Critique is full of transference, between the analysand and analyst, cathected with affects, in which ‘feelings, relationships, signifiers or discursive categories are repeated within present interactions’ so that ‘our responses in the present can be understood as repetitions of significant relations or discourses’ (Lapping 2011, 3).
The proposed essay is a discussion about the psychic aspect of critique, its unconscious and desires, illustrating why the pedagogical relationship of critique resembles the couch in the consulting room where the analysand and the analyst interact, floating between transference and counter-transference. It is also built on some growing body of theoretical papers that draws on psychoanalytical approaches to understanding education, on various themes, such as teaching practice (Britzman 2013); education policy (Clarke 2020); the desire of and in research (Lapping 2013; Tuck 2010); teacher agency (Phelan and Rüsselbæk Hansen 2018); and despair and ethics (Carusi 2022).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedReworking the Lacanian notion, I take three steps to show how the new notion of ‘subject supposed to critique’ may act as an intervention and therefore help us grapple with the complexity of ‘critique’ in teacher education. First, like how Freud perceives sexuality as a reference point, I view the articulation of critique as a symptom that obscures the unfulfilled wishes and desires underneath the apparent resistance and hostility to research. This arises from the provocative questions and comments that are often posed by teachers, to teacher educators, in the imaginary order. ‘What is the use of writing papers that people don’t read?’ ‘Your research should critique the government policy.’ These are not just complaints made by teachers, but also manifest the deep grammar of teacher demoralisation, and the colonisation of ‘what works’ hegemonic order, in the existing paradigm of education.
The second step that I want to make, about subject supposed to critique, is the idea of melancholia; more specifically, following Freud, it refers to a psychic state in which the analysands (demoralised teachers) are confronting with the presence of a disappointing object. I situate critique not in terms of mourning, which refers to the lost object. By constructing the teacher educator as a subject supposed to critique, the demoralised teachers, I argue, actually express the shadow of an object which is present, yet disappointing – more specifically, the subject’s final stage at which he or she can now be a teacher but is confronting a different, disappointing reality that is different from the promised, rose-tinted romanticism and sentimentalism expressed in dramas such as Dead Poets Society, and the phantasmatic ‘what works’ pedagogies reproduced in teacher education.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe final step is the genesis of productive guilt from critique, that is, how guilty feelings may work back on the interviewer, and the production of despairs expressed through the demoralised teachers over the existing order of things. The construction of the teacher educator as a ‘subject supposed to critique’ may open up a new dimension of ethics in teacher research. More specifically, how does the subject supposed to critique mirrored by my teacher informants speak back to our very acts in academia, ethically and response-ably? I argue that through this psychoanalytical interpretation of an encounter between academics and teachers, the question is not just about asking whether critique has run out of steam or to put the steam back on. It is to imagine a difficult critique, otherwise, beyond despair.
ReferencesBritzman, Deborah P. 2013. “Between Psychoanalysis and Pedagogy: Scenes of Rapprochement and Alienation.” Curriculum Inquiry 43 (1): 95–117. https://doi.org/10.1111/curi.12007.
Carusi, F. Tony. 2022. “Refusing Teachers and the Politics of Instrumentalism in Educational Policy.” Educational Theory 72 (3): 383–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12537.
Clarke, Matthew. 2020. “Eyes Wide Shut: The Fantasies and Disavowals of Education Policy.” Journal of Education Policy 35 (2): 151–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2018.1544665.
Lacan, Jacques. 1978. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton.
Lapping, Claudia. 2011. “‘Psychic Defences’ and Institutionalised Formations of Knowledge.” In Knowledge and Identity: Concepts and Applications in Bernstein’s Sociology, edited by Gabrielle Ivinson, Brian Davies, and John Fitz, 143–56. Abingdon: Routledge.
———. 2013. “Which Subject, Whose Desire? The Constitution of Subjectivity and the Articulation of Desire in the Practice of Research.” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 18 (4): 368–85. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.ouhk.edu.hk/10.1057/pcs.2013.14.
Phelan, Anne M., and Dion Rüsselbæk Hansen. 2018. “Reclaiming Agency and Appreciating Limits in Teacher Education: Existential, Ethical, and Psychoanalytical Readings.” McGill Journal of Education (Online) 53 (1): 128–45.
Tuck, Eve. 2010. “Breaking up with Deleuze: Desire and Valuing the Irreconcilable.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 23 (5): 635–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2010.500633.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2007. How to Read Lacan. London: W. W. Norton.
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