Chapter 6 Teaching, Learning, and Supervision

In 1960 the esteemed psychoanalytic thinker David Rapaport observed that psychoanalysis lacks an adequate learning theory of its own. Freud believed that knowledge is generated out of displaced sexual curiosity, but this idea does not seem adequate to explain all of mankind's cognitive achievements nor all of our motivation to learn. Another problem with Freud's theory is that since the libidinal urge is entangled in conflict and compromise formation, a failure to learn thus implies an inadequate, that is, neurotic, resolution to conflict. Surely, critics argued, not all learning results from the resolution of conflict over libidinal urges nor are all problems in learning due to failures in emotional functioning. These concerns led Heinz Hartmann (1958) to develop the concept of the conflict-free sphere of the ego. He emphasized that the substratum of ego functioning is organic and neurological and that the impact of learning is adaptive and necessary for survival (1958). Problems with learning thus could be ascribed to physical, chemical, or genetic causes, as well as to drive-generated conflict. Yet there was still much to be understood about how learning develops, what motivates it, and what it means psychologically.

Psychoanalysts turned to Piaget for further help. Piaget based his theory on empirical observations and organized it around the concept of cognitive stages of development (Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). Like Freud's and Hartmann's, it is a biological and constructionist theory, emphasizing the initiative of the learner in interaction with the environment in “constructing” knowledge. All three theories posit that this interaction produces a