Psychoanalysis and Its Impact on the Development of the Future Special Needs Educators
9th April 2020
Psycho-analysis has given rise to many movements and practices which have provided a stimulus to new education. It has changed the conception of education and intended its aim. Education is no longer considered as restraint to be achieved by external regulatory means such as punishment and rewards. The aim of education is the development of the whole personality – the development of intellect as well as emotions for socially desirable purposes. The usage of psychoanalysis can be helpful for the future educators in a number of ways and we will have a look at them in the following lines.
1. Emphasis on child’s interests
Psychoanalysis has laid stress on such psychological incentives as love, use of instincts, permissiveness and leniency and the child’s own will or interest. It has thrown light on and explained the variations that we find in the assimilation of various subjects among different children. This means that specific disabilities may be due to affective inhibition among other causes. This is something which the learners of the learning disability courses online should understand and inculcate in order to become able future educators.
2. Anxiety and aggression
Psychoanalysis has explained the child’s resistance to learning in terms of unfavourable environmental conditions, unsympathetic and critical teachers and parents, lack of preparations and emotional blocking caused by anxiety and aggression in the form of phobias or due to inharmonious parent-child or intra-parental relationships. A future special needs educator should always be ready to eradicate the anxiety and aggression from the students and for that they need to identify the symptoms and eradicate them as much as possible.
3. Development of proper environment
Psychoanalysis, thus, brings out the importance or proper environment for the education of children. The environment in the school and in the home should be such as to reduce the chances of repression and increase the chances of sublimation. It should provide opportunities for spontaneous and creative activities and for all sublimations. This is something which is essential for the development of a proper in-class environment and a future educator who is looking to make a mark in the sphere of special education needs to know about this.
4. Significance of play
Psychoanalysis has stressed the significance of play in the education of children. The learners of the learning disability courses online should understand and inculcate the importance to play along with other natural interests of children and determine the various curricular and cocurricular activities in the school. This emphasis play has given rise to play therapy and play-way as important techniques in the treatment of scholastic and emotional problems.
5. Free Discipline
The future special needs educators have to understand that psychoanalysis has given impetus to such movements as ‘child guidance’, mental hygiene, ‘paido-centricism’ as well as “freedom of the child”, cannot be denied. The latter has popularised such concepts as ‘free discipline’, which can be an essential tool for the future educators who want to make a mark in the sphere of special education in the future. However, there should be a significant amount of control over the students which lets them understand that the concept of free discipline is for their development in the near future.
6. Respect towards individuality
Importance of respecting the child’s individuality at an early age, of studying the early years of the child, of evaluating the standards of behaviour from a new angle, of recognising the strength of the right impulse and proper education are the other contributions of psychoanalysis to education. It is essential for the learners of the learning disability courses online, who are expected to become special needs educators in the future, to get a better understanding and start respecting the individuality of the students.
One of the significant contributions, however, is the understanding that psychoanalysis has imparted of ‘mal-adjustments’ in children’s behaviour and delinquencies in adolescence. Emotional conflicts due to defective inter-personal relationships within the family, repression of the child’s between the unconscious needs and the demand or reality have been highlighted as important causes without minimising the significance of the inadequate environmental conditions such as the broken home, poor economic situations, bad neighbourhood, inadequate school programmes, lack of proper recreational facilities and others. In this respect, the implementation of psycho-analysis could actually be extremely important for the development of the future professionals, who are currently pursuing the learning disability courses online and are expected to make a career in the sphere of special educations, which makes the job of handling children with special education a less hectic and easily manageable job in the future.
