Feel, think, explore ...

Simmonds, John

The Learning Relationship: Psychoanalytic thinking in education Biddy Youell Karnac Books 2006 182 pages 18.99 [pounds sterling]

This book is not for everybody but much of what it has to say should be understood by anyone involved in education or children's services. The central theme is that education and learning are closely linked to individual development and particularly emotional development. The framework used throughout is almost exclusively psychoanalytic and this may seem unnecessarily limited to some readers. But given much of the material is related to the Tavistock Clinic's 'Emotional Factors in Learning and Teaching: Counselling Aspects in Education' programme, this is understandable. Another difficulty for some readers may be that the framework is more commonly associated with clinical work and the consulting room. However, if one moves beyond that, there lies the book's strength because the focus here is on the interactional, the relational and the emotional this is a book about process not content.

Youell starts with an exploration of learning as part of individual development not confined to formal education or school but to the powerful natural urge of the human infant to reach out, make contact with and take in the world as it is initially represented by the nursing mother. This then becomes the prototype for other learning relationships and the author traces the consequences of this through early and middle childhood and adolescence. The themes of attachment, separation and loss, and anxiety and envy, run throughout and are linked to either child observation or work discussion examples from students on the course. The learning relationship is conceived as continually influenced by these emotions, giving it the capacity to either helpfully work with them or destructively act them out.

This book is not a 'how to' text. Youell urges readers to feel, think, explore, play and understand as core to learning. But probably that is not something that can easily be done alone. The book takes the relational as central and that strongly suggests that what is presented here needs to be reflected on and discussed with others. In fact, this is probably one of the greatest strengths of this approach. Anyone who has suffered in silence as a learner or while being assessed--and that includes here being inspected or audited--will recognise the potential for a safe, thoughtful space to explore that experience. This will not take the place of learning but may make it possible to engage with it and in the process enrich the individual beyond what has become an all too seriously limited definition of learning: results from public examinations.

Given the experience of many looked after or adopted children, The Learning Relationship adds two critically important dimensions to understanding their struggle with learning: the emotional and the relational. Providing learning opportunities and offering high-quality input and resources are essential but a supportive, insightful and tolerant relationship with at least one adult that reflects some of the understanding and learning propounded by this book is at least as important. For that message alone, it should be read.

John Simmonds is Director of Policy Research and Development, BAAF