E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 6, 2021

[A Comment on the Symposium]

Acceptance of “Otherness”:
The Uncanny, Helplessness, and the Unpredictable
Tadashi NISHIHIRA
Kyoto University
Abstract
Despite the fact that psychoanalysis and education are adjacent academic fields, they each have a
different way of looking at things. The objectives of the two fields are different, and what theyemphasize are also different. As such, discussions between the two do not tend to align well with eachother. Moreover, when the issue of translation is taken into consideration, the discussion becomes evenmore complex. Without a careful choice of language, the discussion will go nowhere.
This paper will examine three reports that were presented at an online debate titled“Psychoanalysis and Education: Freudian Thought as an Educational Theory” in the 63rd Annual
Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan (PESJ). I will assume that the reader has
already read the articles compiled in the reports, and I shall extract a few points for consideration here.

1. What is “Otherness”?
The keyword for Prof. Britzman’s ideas is “otherness”, which has been translated as“tashasei” in Japanese. While this is not a mistranslation, this kind of convenienttranslational equivalent using the word “tashasei” does not convey the chaotic depth of
the unknowability that the original term tries to highlight. Given the nature of chaos, itcannot possibly be explained in a single word. It has been rephrased in various ways: “theunknown,” “unconscious situations,” “that which cannot be wholly tamed,” “theuncanny,” and so on. Prof. Britzman states that no one is immune to such otherness. It isalways something unknowable to us, it is an uncontrollable strangeness that disturbs thestability and instills apprehension. Furthermore, otherness is also spoken of in connection
with the “helplessness in infantile life.” Otherwise, it is also spoken of with “the influenceof the other” or “the primacy of fantasy life.” Traditional depth psychology has called this“the unconscious,” or “unconscious energy.” Freud called it “Es.” In any case, we are
Correspondence:
Tadashi NISHIHIRA, Kyoto University. Email: nishihira.tadashi.7c＠kyoto-u.ac.jp

Acceptance of “Otherness”

77

unable to know its true character, and we can neither recognize nor become conscious ofit. That unknown something that we cannot become conscious of is what Prof. Britzman
calls “otherness.”
On Being Helpless
What is exceedingly interesting is the word “helpless.” This is that “which cannot
be controlled but can nonetheless be the most important scene of existence.” Prof. Nishi
speaks of this exact matter as “transference and countertransference” in psychoanalytic
relationships: “Transference can plunge a therapist into a helpless situation that differsfrom the one for which he or she had prepared.” The expressions that convey delicate
situations such as these are subtly different in English and Japanese. The subject in theJapanese sentence is “therapist,” and the intransitive verb “to fall into” is used. In thesentence that Prof. Nishi herself wrote in English, “transference” is the subject, and theline continues, “Transference can plunge (...).” Perhaps she was not satisfied by either
expression. Instead, she is probably thinking of a situation that bears both of these. The
word “helpless” has the aspect of passively being subjected to the influence of external
factors, where one suddenly finds oneself in a situation before one realizes, as well as
another aspect where the therapist involved intransitively inventing.
When it comes to psychoanalysis, this transference is treated with much importance.
If anything, “it is not an exaggeration to state that modern psychoanalysis aims to answer
the question of how these transferences can be facilitated and how one can survive them.”
This verb “survive” is remarkably interesting. When expressing this verb in Japanese,
Prof. Nishi uses the direct translation of “ikinobiru.” This is a word usage not found in
ordinary Japanese conversation. The expression “surviving human relationships” is odd
in Japanese; however, in this case, there does not appear to be any fitting expression otherthan this one. To talk about a sense of otherness which transcends ordinary senses, there
is a need to follow the trail of foreign expressions and use language that deviates from theordinary usage of our mother tongue.

2. Transference and Resistance: Otherness as Helplessness
Prof. Nishi states that “the psychoanalytic process will be adversely affected if thetherapists also play the role of an educator,” and many therapists seem to think this way.
Well, what is “the psychoanalytic process” in the first place? Prof. Nishi says plainly that
it is transference. Then, she introduces an interesting anecdote about Japanese pioneer of
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 6, 2021

78

T. NISHIHIRA

psychoanalysis, Heisaku Kosawa, and his protégé Seishi Shimoda, calling the episode“the event during which a transference had taken place,” and stating, “This is when
psychoanalytic development appears to have occurred”. Transference is “a helplesssituation that differs from the one for which he or she had prepared.”
The above episode can also be understood as a discrepancy in understanding that
arose from the process of analysis. Shimoda (the analysand) is unable to accept Kosawa’s(the analyst) interpretation. Perhaps losing his patience, Kosawa tried to demonstrate thecorrectness of his own interpretation, and scolded Shimoda, “blasting his voicethroughout the entire room.” However, Shimoda does not give way: “Dr. Kosawa, who
dismissed the notion of education without scolding, tried to change my mind by scoldingme, but I did not budge even an inch.” This is exactly the kind of battlefield scene thatplays out over transference and countertransference. The two of them fall into a helpless
relationship, as if they “had been thrown in and were drowning without noticing.”
However, naturally, “modern psychoanalysis aims to answer the question of how thesetransferences can be facilitated and how one can survive them.” This is the core of Prof.
Nishi’s understanding of psychoanalysis. On this point I agree. However, as a non-analyst,
I thought about the following issues, from the point of view of an observer.
How does an analyst facilitate transference? That is to say, the job of the analyst isto 1) before they realize it, 2) facilitate a situation with the client such that they seem tobe swallowed up by and are drowning in a helpless situation, and 3) to survive this. The
word “survive” expresses a compelling state of affairs, as seen above. However, what I
want to pay attention to here is the verb “facilitate.” Since this is meant to be facilitated
before one realizes it, it is not intentional. The English phrasing is “how thesetransferences can be facilitated,” and the causative meaning of facili-tate is not strong
here, but it is expected that the process will be heading in some direction. Or perhaps theanalyst faces the client so as not to obstruct the process that is supposed to arise inevitably
in the psychoanalytic relationship. In other words, they both head toward the helplesssituation and deepen the transference/countertransference relationship within that. Prof.
Britzman depicts such helpless situations as otherness, as well. In teaching–learning
relationships, this “otherness as helplessness” arises. It is unavoidable. However, Prof.
Britzman does not think of leveraging it. It would be preferable to avoid it, but since itcannot be avoided, the idea is to engage with it skillfully. On the other hand,
psychoanalysis requires this “otherness as helplessness.” Not only that, but
psychoanalysis tries to facilitate it. It tries to experience otherness together with the client,work through it, and then survive it. In short, these conversations intersect. School
teachers embrace “otherness as helplessness” between themselves and their students,
Symposium: Psychoanalysis and Education: Freudian Thought as an Educational Theory

Acceptance of “Otherness”

79

even though it is not desirable, and somehow just barely survive that battlefield. In
contrast, analysts hope that such a situation will arise and stay by the side of their clients
while both sides survive that dense battlefield.
These two fields are different somehow, perhaps the things they hope for and expect
are different. However, on a profound level, they reverberate with each other. Bothteachers and analysts try to survive. Then, they see some kind of growth in that process.
Regarding the substance of that growth, teachers, and clients may have different pointsof view and assessments. They are different, but both recognize “otherness as
helplessness” within relationships between people, and I think that surviving this whilefeeling helpless or out of control, has some kind of important significance.
ResistanceIn this way, Prof. Britzman does not have the idea of “facilitating transference.”
There is no need to go out of their way to deliberately facilitate transference, it issomething which inevitably arises in the relationship between teacher and student.
Instead, she focuses on the resistance that arises in that relationship. In many cases, that
resistance arises unconsciously. Perhaps we could think that they do not notice it, but tobe precise, that would be the mechanism of repression. We pretend that there was neverany “otherness as helplessness,” or we forget about it. Prof. Britzman sees this tendency
in the classroom, especially on the teacher side. This is a tendency to unconsciously resist“otherness as helplessness.” Teachers have a tendency to defend against otherness.
Therefore, she recommends that teachers accept otherness. Of course, this is not easy. It
arouses both conscious and unconscious resistance. This is because teachers must thenrecognize that their own selves are torn. They must recognize that the integrity andcompleteness of their selves is broken, and admit the unknown, uncontrollable otherness
within themselves. Teachers cannot control themselves on their own. With this selfawareness in hand, they stand in front of students.
Incidentally, in this context, Prof. Britzman has the following to say about growth.
The acceptance of otherness changes one’s understanding of the concept of growth.
Growth carries with it potential, but it also has the power to cause disruption. Growthbrings about misalignment. Foreignness is uncanny. It perplexes, annoys, and confuses
people. To grow is to accept exactly such foreignness into oneself. In other words, itmeans transforming into something that is not the self: “The self is the stranger unto itself.”
If we think about it this way, growth is none other than the acceptance of that situation.
Prof. Britzman understands education as the business of accepting otherness as a stranger
into oneself. On this point, I completely agree with Prof. Britzman’s view.
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 6, 2021

80

T. NISHIHIRA

3. Nachträglichkeit: Otherness as the Unpredictable
Prof. Geshi discusses Nachträglichkeit in the following way. The meaning of anexperience is only understood afterward. In other words, it is a troublesome issue inwhich an experience is re-interpreted after an event has already happened. I learned theword Nachträglichkeit about 30 years ago, when I was thinking about field study
reflections. After going on a field trip with students, we came back to the classroom andhave time for reflections. In response to student impressions such as “I didn’t understandit at the time” and “I won’t understand it until I get a little distance and time,” I made thecounterargument that “Aren’t you adding a deferred embellishment?” and “Aren’t you
just attaching meaning to the event after it has occurred?” Nachträglichkeit is a word I
first learned about when making arguments such as these.
Prof. Geshi formulates this issue as follows: “Learning matters, which a child is notready to understand, are believed to act after the event” or “Past experiences of which
individuals are not aware, because they were, at one point, beyond the realm ofcomprehension, can eventually be understood by the occurrence of similar experiences
after going through puberty.” We might not understand something in the turmoil of anexperience, but we might only understand its meaning afterward. When I contemplated
this, the concept of the hermeneutic circle came to mind. But beyond that, I thought ofeschatology. To take a grand historical viewpoint, Nachträglichkeit has the same vector
as eschatology. Only after arriving at the end-times is the significance of all the history
leading up to that point revealed. In the end-times, even tragic events are shown to all
have been a part of God’s plan. In other words, it is a time vector of anticipating a future
point in time, and speaking in the perfect tense from a future point in time (its differenceswith the reincarnation time vector are a fascinating topic).
Prof. Geshi’s attempts focus on trying to apply this Nachträglichkeit in a positive
form. That is, its point of view is to reconstruct the deferred feeling that something went
well. If we can think that something went well after the event has been completed, thatwould mean we have succeeded. When we are experiencing something, we do not know
if the experience is “good” or “bad.” Only by being able to reflect back on something
having gone well afterward do we decide that it was “good.” However, the results are
unpredictable. While we are working on trying to bring about good results, we cannot
decide beforehand what must be done in order to obtain good results. We are placing abet. If the standards for what is seen as positive are decided afterward, even if we work
Symposium: Psychoanalysis and Education: Freudian Thought as an Educational Theory

Acceptance of “Otherness”

81

with the thought that something is good, we cannot guarantee that the standards set
afterward will judge that work to have been good. Prof. Geshi thought of this kind ofgroundlessness of education as otherness. Education does not have a reliable foundation.
It is built on otherness. He took up the issue of how to approach that otherness.
By the way, it is precisely because Confucian wisdom understands this issue which
is why it constructed built a system of striking first and not permitting changes later on.
It is a system in which the successors are compelled to follow the same standards up to
the present day, and the standards have all been indicated in the founders’ ideology.
People must not destroy these standards, or deviate from them. It is a system that is passed
on to the next generation exactly as it was inherited from the previous generation. Seenfrom the perspective of this kind of cultural transmission (or emphasis on tradition),
Nachträglichkeit is a frame of mind that acknowledges changes. Even better, we could
say that it is a frame of mind that encourages new generations to take new ways ofviewing things. If that is the case, it would be an idea that falls under the same corollary
as the ideology of new education that has advocated for child-centered education.
Negative and Positive Aspects of Nachträglichkeit
Now, Freud also paid attention to Nachträglichkeit. However, Prof. Geshi’s
perspective is a different one. Freud highlighted the negative aspects of Nachträglichkeit.
What Freud thought of was a situation of falling into a more negative understanding
through deferred comprehension. This is the exact opposite of the hopes of eschatology;
it is a state of becoming more and more miserable by understanding something anew
after it has happened. Even though it would have been better to just forget, by stopping
for a moment and re-understanding afterward, one experiences darkness and uncovers
his or her dark side. In short, “it becomes a deferred trauma.” Freud himself thought that
this was a necessary process for psychoanalysis. For the sake of personality growth, onemust experience deferred understanding on at least one occasion. To be precise, Freudbelieved that in the protected transference/countertransference relationship of thepsychoanalytic relationship, confronting this dark side made people grow or at least
progress to the next step. If we think about it this way, Freud’s treatment theory also
included the potential to apply Nachträglichkeit in a positive way in the long run.
However, Freud did not advance the topic in that direction. Instead, he continued to focus
on the potential or danger in experiencing one’s negative dark side. It amounts to staying
in the dangerous realm that Prof. Britzman called “otherness” and Prof. Nishi called a“helpless situation.” Should we regard this dangerous realm as the core of education, or
as noise (or an obstacle or impediment)? It may be fine to understand this in various ways,
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 6, 2021

82

T. NISHIHIRA

but I will at least include that realm within the area of expertise of the word “education.”
That was the main focus of “An Educational Theory for Otherness” in Prof. Britzman’s
paper.
However, Prof. Geshi goes even further than this. It does not merely look atotherness. It attempts to look at the potential to apply otherness in a positive way. This is
the point of assessing something as good when looking back afterward. Rather thanseeing the negative aspects of Nachträglichkeit, as Freud does, he tries to see its positive
aspects; “If this transformation acts negatively, it becomes a disorder; however, if suchtransformation has a ‘positive’ effect, it can be deemed educational (i.e., a positive
traumatic experience).” This is, so to speak, “Beyond the Trauma Principle.” Prof. Geshi
experimentally brings up “education when reflected upon later.” In other words, it is anargument made in three steps, seen from Prof. Britzman’s line of thought toward
otherness. First, it considers otherness to be unpredictable. Second, it considers Freud’s
perspective on Nachträglichkeit. Third, it observes the positive aspects ofNachträglichkeit rather than its negative aspects. In this way, Prof. Geshi ultimately tries
to accept otherness as a positive thing, but nevertheless, what this inquiry digs up on its
way to reaching that point, is the profound difficulty of education’s groundlessness.
Education has no foundations. Education cannot be planned. This is because even if
we hope for better education, what is good is decided only after reflecting back on theevent. Thus, the standard for better itself does not hold. Only when we reflect back does
education become valid as education. If that is the case, teachers cannot judge whether
their work is a form of good education at the point in time when they are working on theirstudents. There is nothing to guarantee that what one is doing will be for the sake of theother person. There is no guarantee that either way that one will be thanked, or criticized,
when looking back afterward. Furthermore, at what point in time will students reflect
back? Their evaluation of the effect of education will change depending on its time. If
that is the case, the standards are completely fluid. The assessment standards are not only
“relative” but also “relativistic.” If we think about it this way, we end up with theconclusion that no matter what we do, it is all the same. We cannot help but fall into
relativism, skepticism, nihilism, and finally populism of finding futility even if we strive.
I am apprehensive about the argument advancing in that direction. Perhaps Prof. Geshi isalso trying out a theoretical dispute for that inclination.
The business of education has an aspect of “only understanding its significancewhen reflecting about it later in time”. Therefore, there are no foundations, no guarantees
in education. In spite of having shared that reality, how much courage to educate can wehave? Prof. Geshi, who saw a link between psychoanalysis and education in the concept
Symposium: Psychoanalysis and Education: Freudian Thought as an Educational Theory

Acceptance of “Otherness”

83

of Nachträglichkeit, is trying to hold out for the courage to educate in a tight space byhighlighting aspects of that concept that were different from Freud’s thinking.

4. What is the “Acceptance of Otherness”?
By setting otherness as a keyword, a great many fascinating discussions and topics
arise in the themes of psychoanalysis and education. While reading the papers of thepresenters, I thought of the following two topics.
On Trusting
The first topic is about the meaning of “accepting” in the context of accepting
otherness. Prof. Britzman emphasizes that otherness threatens the self. Otherness issomething that antagonizes the self. Otherness confronts the self, and amounts to amenace to the self. In spite of this, she wants people to accept it. However, doesn’t
otherness also have a complementary role for the self? In other words, doesn’t itsometimes also function in a positive way for the self?
For example, Jungian psychology puts confidence in unconscious energy. Above all,in the individuation process, the analyst trusts otherness, and recommends that the client
leave things up to it. Does the word “accept” also include these meanings? That is to say,is the acceptance of otherness the reluctant acceptance of something hostile, or does theconcept instead include the idea of trusting otherness? In Prof. Nishi’s discussion, when
she mentions “facilitating transference,” does that include trusting the otherness thatarises there? Under the appropriate conditions, can we expect that it is alright to trust the
helpless and uncontrolled things that arise, as is bound to happen? Since this is a processthat occurs inevitably, does this mean that it is alright to leave everything up to otherness?
This is also related to Prof. Geshi’s argument. He saw hope in the potential for
Nachträglichkeit to operate positively. Can we consider this to mean trusting inotherness? Or is it impossible to declare trust after all? Is accepting an ambivalent event
premised on the presence of resistance? In this way, we are faced with the necessity of
digging into this concept and examining what “accepting” really means. Furthermore,
what is the subject of the verb “accept”? Is the subject “the ego” or is it “consciousness”
or “the subject,” or is it “the self, including the unconscious”? Not to mention, if we
include the perspective that the subject will change, the discussion gets even more
complicated.

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 6, 2021

84

T. NISHIHIRA

Otherness and “Mu” (Nothing, Zero, Empty)
The second topic is about the link between otherness and Eastern philosophy.
Japanese philosopher Toshihiko Izutsu understood such otherness as non-articulation.
Properly speaking, he understood the self as articulation, and otherness as nonarticulation. To put it more precisely, he understood the opposition of the self and theother as one phase of a grand framework of articulation and non-articulation. Eastern
philosophy called the extreme end of this non-articulation “Mu (nothing, zero, empty).”
Furthermore, Eastern philosophy has clarified aspects in which “Mu” works on “Yū(existence)” in negative and de-constructive ways, and aspects in which it works inpositive and re-constructive ways. If we think about it from the perspective of otherness,this means that both the aspects in which the otherness works on the self in negative andde-constructive ways, and the aspects in which it works in positive and re-constructive
ways, have both been clarified.
When we consider the issue from the perspective of Eastern philosophy, otherness
is understood as one phase of “Mu.” To put it the other way, this means that when we
examine Eastern philosophy with modern language, the concept of otherness becomes avaluable clue. In this way, the word “otherness” is a promising intermediary between
psychoanalysis and Eastern philosophy. The “acceptance of otherness” is an importantresearch topic. It has the potential to become a new ontological epistemology that will
enable an understanding of “education” that differs from modern education. I hope that
discussions of otherness will trigger the opening up of new alternatives in the context ofmodern education.

Symposium: Psychoanalysis and Education: Freudian Thought as an Educational Theory