Dilemma, Uncertainty and Risk as potential for Transformative Learnin...

The Transformative Learning theory origins in the work of Jack Mezirow. Mezirow (2000) describes „Learning is understood as the process of using prior interpretation to construct a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience as a guide to future action” (ibid.:5). Authors such as Kasl & Yorks (2012) or Dirkx (1998) highlight the intuitive, non-rational, depth-psychological, bodily and relational experiences of transformative learning. Dirkx (1998) describes transformative education as a process of individuation. The aspiration is to make the unconscious conscious and to become aware of one’s own various aspects. An essential aspect of transformative learning processes are disorienting dilemmas (Mezirow, 1991). Irritations, uncertainties and risks are essential in deeper learning experiences. As Koller (2011) mentions, education and learning from a humanistic perspective arises in interaction with the self and the world and if the known structures become fragile, which can be a crisis experience. „Bildung does not appear as a harmonic completion but as radically questioning previous ways of understanding the world and ourselves, and this emphasises the crisis nature and risk involved in processes of Bildung“ (ibid.:379). Dilemma, uncertainty and risk are psychological tension experiences- consciously and unconsciously which can create disorientation and the possibility to engage with the struggle at a deeper level.