Images, Transformative Learning and the Work of Soul:

While studying for his GED math test, Mitch became frustrated, threw his pencil, angrily pushed back his chair and remarked, "I can't get this stuff. I would rather be doing pottery. That would be something!" In a course on adult learning, Marie discovered a reading on adult development theory that was helping her to understand what had been going on in her life. Finally, at the conclusion of a collaborative learning workshop, a middle-aged woman who had been with the community college for many years observed, "Dr. Dirkx, I really like these ideas and can see how they would be useful to our learners. But," she continued with resignation in her voice, "we simply don't have the time or resources in our classes to do all these things you suggest." These scenarios demonstrate that subject matter can evoke deeply personal responses among adult learners, which manifests in distinctive emotional reactions. They illustrate that what adults learn is fundamentally grounded in the way they think about themselves and their worlds, opening possibilities for transformation and creating dramatic shifts in one's consciousness. As is often the case with transformation theory, educators interpret such statements literally and regard them as inherently rational, intentional and largely conscious. What if our thoughts about such reactions were regarded as fantasies or products of the learners' imaginations? Grounded in post-Jungian thought (Samuels, 1985) and the world of soul (Hillman, 1975, 2000; Moore, 1996), this article covers an approach to understanding and facilitating transformative learning in which emotional reactions to the text are regarded as imagistic manifestations of inner selves. Hillman (2000) and Moore refer to the act of learning to work with images that populate thoughts, feelings and actions as "soul work," which is critical to personal transformation (Dirkx, 2001). The Self and Other in Transformative Learning Post-Jungian scholars theorize humans to be constituted by a conscious waking self in dynamic interaction with a powerful unconscious. Although we usually identify with the waking self, the unconscious is very powerful in shaping consciousness. The unconscious is made up of clusters of psychic energy or "selves" that, at different times and situations, populate and shape the waking self (Watkins, 2000) and make up the total personality. People embody all these selves, their relationships with each other and the relationships they each have with others in the outer world. Within any given situation, we unconsciously identify with, and unknowingly act for, one or more of these selves. In the opening vignettes, learners expressed particular selves that reflect certain aspects of their unconscious with the outer conscious world. Some "thing" or "other" within the learning environment is evoking certain energies within their unconscious that express aspects of a particular unconscious self. This "other" can be frustration with a math problem, a vision of what it means to be a teacher or excitement in developmental stories. Depending on the situation in which they find themselves, a different sense of the "other" will be encountered, different energies constellated and different "selves" expressed. When doing pottery, Mitch may become a self-confident and contented artisan as opposed to an angry GRE taker. In her classroom, the aforementioned community college teacher might move fluidly and with grace among her academically underprepared students. Lastly, Marie's discovery of developmental theory might be at a loss how to share this growing excitement with her family. The learner's interaction with the text often leads to expression of one or more of these inner "selves." When consciously realized, these expressions can lead to a more clear recognition and differentiation of the various "selves" that populate the learner's being. Vague emotions and feelings that seem to haunt the waking consciousness become more differentiated and fully elaborated. …