ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 considers specific learning difficulties that may be emotionally based, what they might unconsciously be communicating and how we might understand and respond to them in such cases.
Although some learning difficulties are usually or at least partly genetic, there is often an emotional component, which may be a response to realising that others can do things we can’t; or they could indeed be causal, linked to an uncomfortable family change perhaps or to a chaotic family situation where holding things in mind is so difficult, for example. This chapter addresses learning inhibitions, blockages and resistances, as well as opening up the possibility that precise difficulties might be symptomatic of particular anxieties. A couple of detailed case studies illustrate this vividly.
The origins and practice of educational psychotherapy, which began out of precisely this awareness, is mentioned, along with its very helpful use of stories and metaphorical tasks as a way forward with vulnerable children.
The chapter also links to Appendix 4, which shows some possible ways of understanding particular learning difficulties as inhibitions or acting out of anxieties that can’t be talked about.
