Mental Health for Educators

Mental Health for Educators opens the heart of teaching and learning with a generous regard for the complexities of education as psychological phenomenon, emotional situation, and as an expression of life. Britzman and Güzel introduce a psychoanalytic vocabulary that touches the educator's affective experiences of teaching in crowds, online, in one's memories of schooling, in dreams, in anxieties over burnout and rage, in disappointment and victory, in matters of belief and disagreement, and in trying to get to know the lives of others. While most literature on mental health is dedicated to helping students and giving advice to parents, this book speaks directly to university professors, teachers, those learning to teach, those involved in the helping professions, those involved in the learning lives of others, and university administrators. With wit and clear analysis, selected topics bring into conversation matters of love and hate in pedagogy, problems of misunderstanding and loss of meaning, the handling of anxiety and inhibitions in university life, the dilemmas of helping and dependency, and pictures of mental life as our emotional situations. The book is written with style of inquiry that emerges from a view of education as a state of mind and a social bond.