ABSTRACT
This short chapter introduces the Freudian psychoanalytic terminology that will be applied and developed in the two chapters that follow. Outlining Sigmund Freud's description of the operation of the psychic economy and its relationship to educational experience, this chapter demonstrates how the dominant logic of education co-opts the libidinal energy of the id in its seizure of the often oppressive powers of the super-ego. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are also drawn on to show how Freud's analysis of the psychic economy might itself be symptomatic of the effects of the humanist legacy in education.
