Identity Structure

Transference and the Gateless Barrier: A Relational Approach to Contemplative Education

“…Such thinking only amounts to further illusion. The teacher cannot directly explain the nature of this illusion to the student but rather must work with transferential desire (Bracher, 2006). With the intensification of desire, transferential fantasy is guided toward its eventual unraveling, whereby the student no longer tries to determine what the teacher expects of her or him.…”

“…Yet it is also true that even dialogical, seemingly egalitarian pedagogical structures in adult education may nurture relationships of hierarchical power and authority (Brookfield, 2005). They may sometimes merely intensify transference, leading the student to idealize the teacher as a person so wise that she or he knows that she or he knows nothing and relinquishes all external symbols of superiority (Bracher, 2006). Moreover, none of these methods protects the adult educator her- or himself from falling into the trap of countertransference—the fantasy of being adored or appreciated by the students (Cranton, 2016; Knights, 1993; Robertson, 1996).…”

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:…”

“…Despite the belief amongst early psychoanalysts (including Freud, himself) that “the dynamical qualities” of education and psychoanalysis are “indistinguishable” (Britzman, 1998, p. 33), educators have drawn remarkably little on psychoanalytic theory to understand teaching and learning. Recently, however, important work by educational theorists like Deborah Britzman (1998) and Mark Bracher (2006) reveal the substantial power of psychoanalytic theory to deepen our understanding of teaching and learning and to raise important questions about what constitutes an ethical educational practice. For these authors, one of the most important contributions of psychoanalytic theory is its insight into the dynamic effects of vulnerability in processes of human development and learning.…”

Student Subjectivity in the Marketised University

“…The four signifiers can occupy any one of four positions, (although they follow an sequential order relative to each other, i.e., S1 S2 $ a S1). In terms of pedagogy, for example, whereas the ‘master signifier’ could represent the lecturer, and the ‘chain of knowledge’ could stand in for the university’s assessment regulations, the ‘split subject’ could symbolise a student’s conflicted identity as both scholar and consumer ( Bracher, 1994 , 2006 ; Clarke, 2019 ).…”