Both candidates and teachers judge classroom teaching in psychoanalytic institutes to be weaker than personal psychoanalysis or case super vision, in the tripartite educational model. This finding provided the impetus for COPE's holding a teacher-training retreat.
In an effort to improve classroom teaching standards, for two years COPE has been studying the work of Parker Palmer, a master teacher whose pedagogical principles are set forth in his book, The Courage to Teach. The book builds on the central premise that we teach who we are. By this, Palmer means that “good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.” His unorthodox methodology has been applied successfully at every level of education. We decided that it was interesting and important enough to warrant further exploration.
To that end, we participated in a retreat led by a very experienced teacher-trainer, Penny Williamson, who for many years has worked with Johns Hopkins physicians to help them improve their teaching. We had two goals in mind. First, to determine by actual participation in this form of experiential learning if these practices would be relevant and applicable to psychoanalytic teachers. And second, to consider if and how these practices could be disseminated to the institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
The retreat was structured as a series of exercises in experiential learning, group processes, and discussions. This involved exploration of poems, personal teaching experiences, and discussions of our own experiences with good and bad teachers. The exercises were designed to create a sense of safety in the group, thus facilitating openness, awareness, and self-reflection. Throughout the retreat, the group sought to explicate how “teach who we are” involved creating reciprocal trust; a clear focus on the subject to be taught rather than on the teacher; and a process of “open and honest” exploration of questions. Implicit throughout was the importance of respect, curiosity, and the facilitation of a learning attitude, not a taught attitude. It was also clear that the whole meaning and impact of this kind of experiential learning would not immediately become fully apparent, but would evolve over time.
We began by sharing how we became teachers of psychoanalysis and how specific teachers had profoundly influenced us. Exercises exploring a good teaching experience versus a bad one followed. That set the stage for examining the focus, goals, and roles our personalities play in our teaching experiences, as well as the value of constructive feedback. The discussion of “holding paradoxes and working with fear” was of particular interest.
Perhaps the most powerful experience of the retreat was the “clearness committee,” in which one member of a small group shared a current dilemma in his teaching life. The other members of the group attempted to help clarify the dilemma without trying to fix it. The assumption is that our problems are ours alone to resolve, and that we possess the inner resources to resolve them, but may need the help of others to remove internal interference.
Lawrence B. Inderbitzin, M.D., the chair of COPE, has authored or co-authored more than 30 publications, served on the editorial boards of JAPA, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is a distinguished life fellow of the American College of Psychoanalysts.
The group found the retreat interesting, compelling, and thought provoking. The essential message was that in every class we teach, our ability to connect with our students and to connect them with the subject depends less on the methods we use than on the degree to which we know and trust ourselves—and are willing to make ourselves available and vulnerable in the service of learning.
Conveying the essence of this experience to others who had not participated seemed daunting. However, some of us have already had positive and encouraging results, particularly with the technique of holding paradoxes in classroom teaching.
COPE has continued to critically assess the value of the retreat and its applicability to psychoanalytic education broadly throughout the Association by devoting a half day for discussion to this subject at its January meeting. Although we believe most institute teachers could benefit from a retreat such as ours, it is difficult to imagine how this could be practically arranged given the realities of time and expense. However, we will encourage and facilitate any institute wishing to pursue this course.
Below are our conclusions and recommendations at this time:
We will establish a Workshop on Problems in Teaching under the chair of Jerry Melchiode and solicit members from every institute to begin participating in June 2004.
We will ask COI to inquire about pedagogy on site visits.
We will explore the possibility of developing consultants for helping teachers, possibly through the establishment of a new study group to replace the current one on pedagogy.
We will disseminate the information about the teacher training retreat as well as some guidelines for good teaching through as many channels as possible.