ABSTRACT
In this chapter I explore the contribution that psychoanalytic perspectives, mainly object relations theory, can make to a richer understanding of learning, in all its dimensions, as well as to theorising the subject that we call the learner. I draw on in-depth auto/biographical research used to illuminate micro-level processes in learning and teaching, including in informal settings. The research is to be understood by reference to a continuing neglect of the visceral, embodied aspects of learning and the marginality of psychoanalytic perspectives in thinking about learning and educational processes more widely (Hunt and West, 2006, 2009). However, the neglect does not go unchallenged: Tara Fenwick, for example, in applying complexity science to experiential learning, notes the potentially important contribution of psychoanalytic learning theories, in that analysis of learning ‘should focus less on reported meanings and motivations’ and more on what is happening ‘under the surface of human encounters’, including ‘the desire for and resistance to different objects and relationships’ (Fenwick, 2003: 131). The resistance to psychoanalytic ideas in relation, for instance, to adult learning – or indeed learning
across the lifespan – may partly stem from the continuing influence of cognitivist approaches. The same could be said for theorising learning and subjectivity, at least in the Anglo-Saxon world, primarily in terms of cognition and cognitively driven, information-processing subjects (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000). Of the three domains of learning – the cognitive, the social and the psycho-emotional – the latter remains most often neglected, including in learning psychology (Illeris, 2002). However, as the Enlightenment project wanes, a stronger challenge has emerged to a disembodied Cartesian cognition and mind/body dualities. More holistic, post-structuralist, feminist but also psychoanalytically informed sensitivities are emerging (Hunt and West, 2009). Psychoanalytic ideas, it is suggested, offer new insights into what may be happening ‘under the surface of human encounters’ and in diverse contexts, when people learn.
