Learning and Helping People Learn

The basis of education is that students learn as teachers structure a valuable educational environment in which they focus on helping students to overcome obstacles to their learning. Instructors at all levels must bear in mind that it is the students who do the learning. Learners come to our college, psychoanalytic institutes, professional conferences, and university classrooms with all sorts of baggage, such as mental blocks, which can interfere with their learning. So many students have felt through much of their education that they were imprisoned and that the best parts of school were recess, clubs, sports teams, and the friends they made. Class was just a means to get to what they found pleasurable and rewarding.

Along the way, many who generally love school develop

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emotional blocks to particular subjects. Throughout my years as an educator it has been wonderful when, for example, I could coach a woman with an otherwise excellent grade point average to pass the simplest of math courses so she might meet her final graduation requirement rather than fail or drop it to avoid failing. A middle-aged, exhausted, and discouraged nurse, who was also a wife and the mother of four children, came to a Western Civilization evening course reporting that she hates history and had already dropped or failed the required course previously. In a class of 25 I certainly could not function as a therapist (nor did I want to), but I could assume the role that I had my entire career prior to becoming an analyst of helping the student to understand and work on ways to overcome their blocks to certain subjects. On some occasions I have made bets with students, offering $10 or $20 to their one that they would pass the course or get a high grade in the course that the student thought they could only pass and not excel in. I don’t ever recall losing such a bet. (Since there is no way my own ethics or college policy would allow me to take student money, it was always made clear that it would be placed into the end of the semester class celebration fund.)

In class, I try to be a consistent role model of learning, being open-minded and not defensive, and willing to acknowledge that I need to do more research. Also, I will thank students if they correct a factual mistake that I write, provided it is stated appropriately. Like in analysis, I am looking for what lies beneath the surface, but I seek to use this for future reference, to understand what’s going on in the class, or occasionally in a private conversation with a student. The classroom, whether virtual or physical, must be a safe place where students can speak their minds freely and work through conflicting approaches and uncertainties.

Interdisciplinarity is central to my approach since I draw on history and psychoanalysis—and to a lesser extent, anthropology, ethology, literature, political science, and trauma studies. When teachable moments arise, I focus on them, although I have to be careful since college students are drawn to very different societal events than my generation. In analytic training, I was taught to always follow the emotion, which is what I do in class, starting each course with the importance of acknowledging the emotions of everyone we study. Psychoanalytic principles underpin all of my teaching regardless of what the course is labeled. For a variety of reasons, Ramapo College moved away from the type of interdisci-

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plinarity that had allowed me to teach numerous courses under the labels of psychohistory and political psychology.

So what constitutes my idea of psychohistory? Psychological history includes some of the following: childhood and its history; dreamwork; the difference between conscious emotion and unconscious behavior; group delusions and process; the mechanisms of psychic defense (coping mechanisms); political psychology; psychic trauma; and psychobiography. A crucial element is the approach, starting with the Socratic method. Socrates said “know thyself” since self-knowledge is the basis of all learning. It is what psychoanalysis is all about, and I like the notion of Socrates as a type of proto-analyst, which an ancient historian friend of mine wrote a paper on. Whenever I can make them relevant, I teach and attune students to the mechanisms of defense, which in history and interdisciplinary courses I refer to as coping mechanisms.

Psychoanalysis attuned me to the importance of acknowledging and trying to understand the basis of resistances rather than trying to crush them in the classroom as a threat to my authority as their teacher. I seek to put myself in the shoes of students, empathizing with them at times when they hold views totally contrary to my own. Transference is a valuable tool, thus I am made aware as to what students project onto me as the authority, or how they resist what I have to offer. Probing whether my countertransference—that is, what feelings I have for individual students and the class itself—is induced or my own projection is of considerable concern to me. I am cautious of students who idealize me, always wondering what lies beneath the glorification.

Early in my career, I decided to become a small college undergraduate liberal arts professor because of my desire to work closely with students. I was disgusted at my 82 History Department colleagues at Temple University, who only seemed to be interested in publishing and moving up the ladder of academic success. However, my interest in broadening my knowledge led to my starting postgraduate seminars at the Institute of Psychohistory and the Psychohistory Forum. Colleagues from many different disciplines provided work-in-progress papers at these seminars, which were then vetted by a committee and read by participants before a Saturday seminar devoted to discussing these papers to mutually deepen or broaden the knowledge of the scholars/clinicians present. Historians typically benefited greatly from the insights of clinicians, who are more experienced and psychoanalyzed psychologi-

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cal historians; this included those in other fields and a variety of other colleagues. Similarly, clinicians enriched their projects with the suggestions of academics and other associates.

The halcyon days of these seminars were in the 1980s, 90s, and the beginning of the 21^st century when large numbers of colleagues brought their projects to our seminar and circles, often coming from a great distance to New York City. In my article, “Postgraduate Psychohistorical Education” (Clio’s Psyche, Vol. 12, No. 3, December 2005, 113, 121-123), 12 principles of this education are spelled out. This was part of the Teaching Psychohistory Special Issue—Part I, which included nine articles. These invaluable seminars are continuing and now involve new opportunities for participation in our virtual era. My reference to the earlier period as the heyday is based upon newer colleagues presenting their research projects and enriching their and our knowledge. The last decade has involved more of the same people, such as me as the convener/director, rather than newcomers. After the COVID-19 quarantine is over, I am looking forward to a mixture of our wonderful in-person as well as virtual seminars with colleagues around the country and the world.

Psychoanalysts and analysts are learners, too. Analysts learn as they patiently listen to what is said, not said, expressed non-verbally, and through transference and countertransference. Analysands learn by the manner, questions, and example of their analysts, as well as through the transference when they are ready to listen to it. Regrettably, I don’t recall ever reading an article in Clio’s Psyche on this process of psychoanalytic teaching and learning. For me, this one-on-one experience is the most important education beyond what I learned from my parents as a child. So much of individual and group analysis is reparative: As a small child, the formation of my personality involved decisions that I never would have made if I had the wisdom of age. Of course, this is part of the human condition. In my case, and I am sure it is that of so many others as well, psychoanalysis released my creativity and enriched my life.

In my own psychoanalysis, I learned that idealization in all its manifestations, especially of political figures, is something that I overwhelmingly mostly gave up long ago. When my students, as in a recent course on the 2020 presidential election, overwhelmingly idealized former President Trump, I wondered what he meant to them and encouraged them to express the basis of their feelings. As

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in analysis, the safety factor is a crucial element if individuals are going to feel free enough to get beyond saying what they think the authority (whether professor or analyst) wants to hear. Consequently, despite my conviction in teaching the 2020 election that Trump had proved himself to be a disaster for the country, in teaching a class of overwhelmingly strong 18-year-old male Trump supporters, I initially did not express my presidential preferences. About a month into the semester, my analysis of the President would reveal my preference as the students read some of the political and psychological articles I had assigned.

As a professor, I remind myself how difficult and time-consuming it was to give up my idealization of President Kennedy. Perhaps Marshall Alcorn is right: We must mourn one ideological position before assuming a new one. In teaching presidential issues, I constantly remind myself of the extent to which Americans are living in separate media worlds, which so often are simply echo chambers reinforcing their beliefs. Change is not easy, as I know from my own long personal and group psychoanalysis, as well as from my earlier appreciation of Thomas Kuhn’s important work on paradigm shifts.

In conclusion, I see myself as a participant observer in the process of learning about everything and everyone around me, including my students and myself. This essay is a combination of my evolving practice as a teacher and my pedagogical ego ideals. As my students, society, and our technology change, so does my teaching. We are all learners and teachers. When we share our ideas with others in conversation, professional presentations, articles, and books, we are inevitably in the process of teaching. Throughout my lifetime, I have been fascinated by the last words of the famous. Winston Churchill’s last words were, “I’m bored with it all.” I hope my last words will be, “It is now time to learn what it’s like to die.” Psychoanalysis has enabled me to live life to the fullest and help my students in the processes of their learning.

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