The Group as a Means to Restore Community in Teacher Education? Therapeutising Technologies during the “Psycho-boom” of the 1970s in Zurich

Abstract

During the “psycho-boom” in the 1970s, there was a strong demand for the group as a multifaceted setting. In the sense of a therapy for “normal people”, psychologising and therapeutising technologies such as group dynamics or talk therapy were widely established in society e.g. in countercultural social movements and in pedagogical contexts. Group formats in general, such as conversational and discussion groups, as well as self-help groups and theatre or environmental groups were considered modern and conducive to pedagogical work. New technologies promised holistic help in finding the socalled true or authentic self at the individual level as well as consciousness at the collective level. It is the narrative of individual and collective processes yielding emancipatory demands. This article thus examines entanglements of psychologising and therapeutising knowledge in the context of teacher education in the Swiss canton of Zurich. Based on source materials, such as annual reports of teacher training seminars and publications by teachers, we persue the question to what extent the group was substantiated and used in psychologising and therapeutising ways in Zurich’s teacher education.