Psychologizing and the Anti-Psychologist: Dewey, Lacan, and Contemporary Art Education

Abstract

Art education throughout the 20th and into the 21st century has drawn on both psychology and psychoanalysis to support approaches to teaching and learning in the arts. This article examines the concept of “psychologizing” as it appears in the writing of psychologist/philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) and psychiatrist/psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) to complicate our assumptions about what it means to learn in engagement with images and objects. Dewey’s psychologizing has provided a way for teachers to help students gain access to new knowledge through experience and conscious reflection while Lacan viewed psychologizing as a fundamental misunderstanding of the human subject. Contemporary writings in art education are used to illustrate ways the two approaches have manifested in contemporary art education theory and practice.

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