Conference Agenda

My proposal deals with the issue of uncertainty not in terms of its societal aspect, heightened by the socio-political contexts to which subjects are submitted, but as the precariousness inherent in the subject's perpetual psychological task of keeping the internal and external worlds in continuous motion. So it's more a question of 'dealing with' uncertainty, of working on the ability to accept doubt, surprise and the unforeseen despite the challenge it can represent for narcissism. In fact, the over-emotional injunctions that teachers may be subjected to in a professional situation sometimes weaken the very structure of their narcissism - based on "a certain image that the subject acquires of himself on the model of others" and which founds the ego as a "psychic unity" (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1981). This feeling of perpetual imbalance, which the clinical position based on a psychoanalytical orientation may seem to maintain for the subject-teacher, would paradoxically be a source of reassurance and construction of a certain internal security ensured by the work of psychic elaboration in the work of thought that uncertainty imposes.

Keeping thought moving requires doubt, uncertainty and imbalance, so that thought is creative and not inward-looking. Janine Puget said: « tenemos que aprender a vivir en un desequilibrio permanente » (Puget, 2020). In the field of secondary education, the observation of practice analysis groups conducted in group settings in which writing and reading aloud are used, leads me to conceive that making sense, based on the linking of experiences and secondarised thoughts, is made possible by the 'containing function' (Bion, 1962) provided by the members of the group in their psychological and physical dimensions. The psychic support provided by the group seems to offer the teachers who take part in these schemes an affirmation of their subjectivity as well as a legitimisation of their pedagogical action through the ability to welcome the unexpected and to 'remain open' within their class. It is by becoming aware of the unconscious movements and transfers that drive them within the class groups that this work of elaboration can be established, and also by the stability that the group of teachers brings to each of its members.

"Lo vincular", the "psychoanalysis of the link" - as conceptualised by Puget and Berenstein - makes it possible to observe what "is between" and to think of groups as psychic spaces that provide the subject with possible stability. Jeanine Puget explains: "Parto de la idea de que lo común, que nos hace miembros momentáneos de una situación, se crea y recrea sin cesar, pero los sujetos suelen tener la ilusión de que la pertenencia conlleva un para siempre que les aseguraría un lugar en el mundo en cuanto sujetos sociales. (...) La ilusión es la de construir conjuntos duraderos, basados en contratos inamovibles y en la armoniosa conjunción de las diferencias" (Puget, 2015).

For the teachers, these practice analysis groups are breathing spaces - where they can look back on experiences that are often enigmatic, sometimes painful - and they are times for elaboration, where the group becomes a psychic support that underpins, in that it connects the subjects while providing this function of "illusion de pertenencia" that facilitates the expression of subjectivity. This is built on the sharing of stories, metaphors and words, which often reflect the experiences of the group with the pupils, which resonate in the experience within the group of teachers: the "between" - which the group generates - generates a creative potential that invites us to move forward with others, inhabiting different spaces at the same time.