What I learnt from educational psychology - An Insight from on the Couch- For Unisa Psychology Students

It was quite some time ago – almost ten years ago now. My parents felt that I could be doing better at school. I agreed. To all intents and purposes I seemed an intelligent young man. That was of course if you didn’t look at my school report. I was failing one or two subjects and not doing much better in the others.  

It was suggested, I think by the school’s guidance teacher, that I may benefit from a visit to an educational psychologist. I arrived at Dr X’s rooms, (the name is not omitted for the sake of anonymity but because I simply cannot remember her name.)  She was a woman, probably in her mid thirties. She asked me a few questions, mainly to do with school. She then sat me down at a desk and asked me to complete a great number of tests. I did so.

I was not a rebellious teen – in fact quite the opposite. Yet, the moment I met her I was on the defensive. I knew her game. She was the clever doctor - out to prove that there really was something wrong with me. 

I myself thought that there might indeed be something wrong with me. Why else would I be sent to this “special” doctor. I grudgingly completed the tests. She then showed me a number ink blots and asked me to say what emotion they provoked. Some it seemed were beyond interpretation. You could only associate an ink blot that looked like a distorted face as pain or anguish.

At this point I truly began to feel like one of the afflicted. Despite my assumed mental deficiency I knew what the doctor was doing. I had seen this test carried out in movies – usually to establish the sanity or insanity of a serial killer. With this in mind I tried not to associate too many of the images with words that implied destruction or negativity of any kind. I thought these would be the wrong answers. I only realised later that the opposite may be true. 

Following this I went from feeling like a villain to feeling like a three year old. I, at the age of Sixteen, was instructed by the doctor to, “draw a picture of my family”. The past thirteen years of my life seemed to have never happened. For the next few minutes I was a toddler innocently drawing a picture of my mommy, daddy and big brother. Unaware of the Doctor’s reason for this seemingly infantile exercise I surrendered to it. I enjoyed it. I had always been good at art.

Unfortunately my artwork would later be analysed and in my opinion criticised, but not for its artistic merit. No, in a follow up session the good doctor explained that, because in the picture of my family I had drawn myself closer to my mother than to my father I indeed favoured my mother over my father. What this finding had to do with solving my educational problems I still do not know. Nonetheless there it was in colour – proof of the Oedipal complex. After all a picture drawn nonchalantly in complacent compliance to doctor’s orders was irrefutable and empirical proof. Through my artwork my subconscious had spoken. When I disagreed with the doctor’s finding she claimed I was in denial.



I am not quite sure of what happened after this. Maybe I repressed it, but I think, as the follow up consultation progressed it was at some point suggested that I repeat standard 9. My parents wisely chose to ignore the Doctor’s advice. Time it seems, has proved that I am not completely intellectually deficient. Or maybe I am, I did in truth only get 70% for one of my degrees easiest courses – first year psychology.

None of the educational psychologists ever considered that the problem may not have been with me but rather with education itself. Throughout school, I was most of the time, intensely bored. Not surprisingly I might add. The history teacher whom I had the honour to be taught by for three consecutive years had perfected the art of teaching – brilliant, who would have thought that effective teaching could be achieved simply by reading aloud directly out of the text book.

Presumably the department of education has for the past many years subjected trainee teachers to their own psychological testing and career guidance. This surely is a logical assumption. Why then does it seem that so many teachers are (even to a sixteen year old) so obviously unsuited to teaching? Think of your own high school teachers. If yours were anything like mine, most were impatient, many incompetent and some emotionally and physically abusive. There were some, a very rare few,that were extremely decent human beings and excellent teachers. 

These precious few would likely have found their vocation regardless of any psychometric testing they had endured. In the past few years I have been subjected to a great deal of further psychological testing for the purpose of career guidance. I believe that the results of some of these tests were highly accurate. The problem lies with the fact that all they told me was what I already knew. What then was the point?

I’m not saying that psychometric and other psychological testing is a completely useless process. I am sure that in the right circumstances it can be useful. From a ‘patient’s” perspective I can only say that none of the testing I have endured has yet done me any good. And in many cases I believe that therapists give such tests too great a value and often neglect to adequately interact with their clients.