The metaphor of therapy and its use in the learning of a workplace identity

Abstract

The idea that learning involves a kind of therapy goes back to ancient times: Socrates was, at least in part, concerned with a kind of care of the self, and Plato in his early dialogues presents learning as a cure for bad intellectual and moral habits. Our metaphoric use of therapy supposes that worthwhile learning might be considered as a treatment for moral or physical non-well-being in that learning, like illness, might most easily be identified with a desire for good.