Prequels and sequels: A psychoanalytic understanding of developing a professional practice in an education setting

Abstract

A review of the research on the early careers of education professionals reveals that the encounter with professional knowledge and practice involves an interaction between the past, with all its memories and phantasies, and the objectivity of an established professional practice. The education biography also noted that Oliver carefully and intellectually reviewed the risks associated with education settings. The content of his education biography indicated that, in response to education settings, he had a controlling disposition. By considering educational processes and structures from a psychoanalytic perspective, education can look forward to a more human and ethically nuanced future. The Gestalt approach is grounded within a psychosocial view. The earlier suggestion, from both Freud and Anna Freud, that teachers should receive psychoanalysis to help them appreciate the origin and consequence of transference phenomena, is ultimately unrealistic. The narratives were analysed using techniques to produce an education biography that represented the possible transference responses to education.