Irritation und Phantasie

In processes of experience, we become intensely involved in a situation or–what is particularly important for academic learning–in the examination of a learning object. In this article we show in which ways meaningful, ubiquitous learning processes that embrace the individual can be understood against the background of a theory of learning based on experience. Experience constitutes itself within a process of crisis management which must not be misunderstood as a negativistic perspective. For we will demonstrate how crises and irritation can be transformed into constructive learning processes and how they function as “fruitful elements in educational processes.” However, key processual and structural elements of the process of experience, such as resistance, intuition, imagination, and fantasy, have in effect not yet been developed in learning theory, at least with respect to the academic learning process. It is precisely this gap that this essay acts on. Particularly in the case of fantasy inspired by irritation, its potential of being the focus and dynamic medium of intercommunication between the inner and outer world, and of the corresponding transitions between self and object, becomes evident. This assumption will be thematized with respect to its empirical-psychological and didactic relevance. Finally, using the concept of everyday fantasies it will be demonstrated that and how irritation and fantasy can be fruitfully combined with reflective processes.