Transformative learning relationships and the adult educator’s countertransference: a Jungian arts-based duoethnography

Transformative learning theory developed from Jack Mezirow’s seminal work on perspective transformation, is a predominant paradigm within adult education scholarship. Recent developments include Jungian perspectives in transformative learning that challenge the dominance of Mezirow’s rational conceptualisation and the exclusion of non-rational and unconscious aspects of learning. Whilst Jungian contributors elevate the role of the unconscious in transformative learning theory, scant attention is paid to the unconscious dynamics between educator and adult learner set within an intersubjective matrix. What is absent is any mention that feelings stirred up in the process of transformative learning might belong within a reciprocal relationship. Jung, who is arguably the pioneer of countertransference, offers a definite point of view about the importance of the subjective responses of the analyst and his/her ability to be influenced and impacted by the client. If the analyst is to transform others, then the analyst needs to be transformed. This relationship of mutual transformation is reconceptualised as a transformative learning relationship. A transformative learning relationship provides an intersubjective frame for exploring countertransferences and the emotional experience of the adult educator. The devised research method of collaborative imaginative engagement is an innovative post-Jungian extension of Jung’s method of active imagination, that involves two adult educators making and working with images of countertransference. The findings are presented as an arts-based duoethnographic portrayal of a co- individuation process between two adult educators. This duoethnographic process of co-individuation prototypes transformative reciprocity within the educator/learner relationship. This research addresses the imbalance or ‘one sidedness’ within transformative learning theory, that overlooks the educator’s subjective and intersubjective experience in favour of the learner’s experience. In doing so, the research contributes a more holistic and collaborative understanding of transformative learning that shows how both learner and educator can be inextricably bound together through a process of mutual transformation.