Is it possible to eliminate transference in teaching?

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the way we think about how freudian psychoanalysis relates to education. Amongst the many classics that deal with this matter, we turn to Catherine Millot’s book, Freud anti-pédagogue, for it provides a broad view of our theme and presents a controversial conclusion: an antinomy between educating and analyzing. If this is true, can we think of a connection between pedagogy and psychoanalysis? Millot tells us that there cannot be an analytical pedagogy in the sense of a science of education, considering the referred science just as one uses it as acquired knowledge by psychoanalytical experience about the unconscious. This well-articulated discourse by Millot led us to believe (in academia) that there is a definite divide between these fields. Our question here is thus: may we think otherwise? For the present reflection, we follow the position of a contemporary brazilian thinker: Rinaldo Voltolini. He argues that the issue of the position of psychoanalysis in educational field is oriented towards a discourse of mastery. We will then take into consideration the impossibility of educating and the role of the ideal of the self in education. Voltolini states that such mastery is impossible. In his argument, mastery is understood as a maximizing the effect of education on child in a desired direction. In other words, a move towards an ideal. In this sense, we can ask ourselves, is it possible, after all, to eliminate transference in education? Or rather, can we make use of a transference attitude in teaching/learning? Our conclusion turns to the idea that the educator would work starting from his suggestive power; knowing this, he can rely on such power while educating.

Keywords: Psychoanalysis. Pedagogy. Freud. Millot. Voltolini.