Developing Identity Structures

Intimacy and Ethical Action in Adult Education

“…The story of holding hands turns us towards a very different normative foundation for a critical and emancipatory pedagogy. Mark Bracher (2006) summarizes the basis for the turn very well:…”

“…We become, in essence, more deeply capable of truly ethical action that enables another person to expand their personal capacities for compassion and care. Moreover, as Mark Bracher (2006) observes, to the extent that we can provide a play space within which the other person can allow him or herself to accept and integrate shameful aspects, we can open them to new ways of relating to and learning about the world at large. As Bracher observes, our identity structures tightly constrain what we allow ourselves to risk learning.…”

“…As our reflections on intimacy have revealed, a key element of this space will be to hold its participants closely enough that they can begin to relax, so they might begin to accept their own vulnerabilities and, thus, open up to a new sense of themselves, other people, and the world. Bracher (2006) offers Erik Erikson's final stage of identity development, the stage of "generativity," as an identity structure that best supports ethical pedagogical action. For Erikson (1964), generativity represents a deep-seated instinct possessed by humans to care for and nurture the development of other humans.…”

“…Interestingly, as Bracher (2006) insists, many educators are drawn to teaching precisely because it provides rich opportunities for maintaining rigidly held identity contents, thus avoiding deep-seated psychic vulnerabilities. Bracher describes how educators can adopt haughty and "authoritarian" (p. 85) demeanors to secure student admiration for the educator's identity; they can strive to inculcate dominant or "establishment" (p. 89) knowledge or worldviews consistent with and affirming of the educator's identity contents; or, alternatively, they can criticize of Uncertainty: The ca by David L. Blustein.…”

“…While Callahan goes so far as to suggest that it might be helpful for educators to pursue formal training as therapists so they can assume "ethical responsibility to manage the change process they initiate" (p. 81) and Jagodzinski suggests that educators have "'therapy' … as part of their program of studies" to support a "'different' understanding of ethical pedagogy" (p. 96), there are other, more feasible options. Bracher's (2006) strategy of engaging teachers in a systematic identification and working through of their own identity needs is especially promising. This, he contends, is largely possible through self-analysis based on the processes of psychoanalysis.…”