You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Learning, the name we give to a very complex system of mental processses, is a matter which still surrounds us with immeasurable mystery. We can describe much about what takes place in a number of its aspects. For the most part, however, most people take for granted that one just accomplishes learning in the degree that his native intelligence allows. It was refreshing for me to hear my child's first-grade teacher say, “I am one of those who feel that the most important factor in a child's learning is his feeling about himself. If he likes himself and is in an environment which likes him, he is possessed of the confidence that allows interest, inquiry, and assimilation.” She was asserting in her way what I have observed to be crucial to human learning, the inner emotional climate of the individual. In presenting the following clinical experiences and some of their meaning to me, I am foregoing many other observations and speculations on aspects of learning per se, and emphasizing the role of certain emotional attitudes as they affect the process.
Andy came into treatment with me 13 years ago, as a young man of nineteen, after psychiatric discharge from the army. Andrea, a sophomore in high school, was referred to me by a colleague about 6 years ago because this doctor was troubled by something that had happened in his consultation with her. For all her remarkable charm, sophistication, and good sense, she was peculiarly insistent that she was being misjudged!
Andrea had done well throughout grammar school and her teachers had predicted fine things for her. She had taken the entrance examinations to a high school which accepts only students of special achievement and ability, and she had easily won admission. By the end of her freshman year, however, Andrea was close to failing in several subjects. Beyond that, she felt certain that her capacities had been greatly overrated. That summer her father had a psychologist friend of his retest her and the results indicated a