How Psychodynamic Thinking Can Transform Relationships in High Schools
Edmund is a counsellor, psychotherapist, trainer, consultant, and founding director of Rosny House Limited. With over twenty years of experience in high school education, including leadership roles in pastoral care and subject management, he blends psychodynamics with business and education to deliver effective and positive change.
A pupil storms out of class after being asked to put away their phone. Another quietly withdraws, never causing trouble but never participating either. Most schools focus on changing behaviour, but what if the behaviour isn't the real story?
Nearly everyone has an opinion about schools and how they should be run. Perhaps this is because most people in the world have experienced the school environment. I have heard the phrase on countless occasions among friends and family that “it wasn’t like that in my day”, behavior in schools has become more and more challenging.
Having been a high school teacher for over twenty years, I have seen a lot of changes in education, including an increase in pupils with additional learning, social, emotional, and behavioural needs. This has made me rethink the way that I work and communicate with young people.
In this article, I’m going to explore how my work as a psychotherapist has informed and improved my approach to behaviour management and teaching, and how this can be applied to teaching practice in general.
Unconscious processes
When I began my teaching career, I realised that I made all the usual textbook mistakes and “schoolboy errors.” For example, as a young teacher, I wanted to be liked by my students, so I was kind and gentle, genuinely wanting them to have a positive learning experience. In reality, I was lacking the positive assertiveness required to create a safe, secure learning environment in which the young people could flourish. Therefore, when challenging behaviour arose, I took it personally and saw myself as a “bad” teacher, to the point where I considered giving up the profession.
Understanding myself
I had been considering working in pastoral care within high school education and decided to participate in a counselling skills course, validated by COSCA (Counselling & Psychotherapy in Scotland). Through this course, I began to understand how I interacted with others and what was motivating such interactions. I realised that I needed reassurance from others to feel safe and secure. This new understanding helped me to begin to accept myself and find security from within.
Relating to others
When I applied this newfound understanding to the classroom, I noticed that I was no longer fixated on how I or my teaching was perceived by the students. Rather, I was able to be at peace with myself, which allowed me to be a secure anchor in the classroom for others. I noticed that my classroom environment became a happier, more successful environment, wherein the pupils felt safe, secure, and encouraged.
Why schools need more than behaviour management
Most people in the teaching profession would agree that adolescent mental health has become a more complex subject over the last few years. When in the past, behaviour may have been understood as “good” and “bad,” the focus has changed to understanding behaviour as a communication of something deeper. The notion that rewards and sanctions will suffice is no longer valid.
The Scottish Government has addressed adolescent mental health in their recently published factsheet on Psychological trauma and adversity including ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) - gov.scot.
In this, it describes the central importance of having trauma-informed professionals within many areas, including education. This means that educators are being trained to recognise the signs and symptoms of trauma in young people and how this manifests in their behaviour. Understanding trauma aligns perfectly with psychodynamic thinking. Making sense of the impact of trauma allows the practitioner to understand the behaviour of a young person and make a lasting and empowering connection with them.
What is becoming apparent is the need for a focus on robust, secure, and nurturing educational relationships.
Looking beneath the surface
So how can psychodynamics help educators in building positive educational relationships? Let’s dive into some of the main elements of psychodynamic thinking that can be applied here:
Unconscious emotional processes
Central to psychodynamic thinking is the idea that our behaviour is largely controlled by unconscious emotional processes. One way of thinking about it is that everyone has an operating system (OS) in which the core programming has been written at the very early stages of our life (0–18 months). This early programming is designed to ultimately keep us (our psyche) safe and secure, and it is the building block for how we interact with others and with ourselves. Most of this programming runs in the background, dictating our behaviour and feelings, and is perfectly fine until it becomes problematic or dysfunctional.
As we grow up, we add layers of programming to the OS. Challenges arise when we are put in a position that makes us feel threatened or insecure. It is like pressing the “restore factory settings” button. Despite all of our learning and reasoning, we go back to the original OS.
Therefore, when a child behaves in a particular way in the classroom, they are potentially unaware of the motivating factors behind their behaviour. Knowing that something else is going on can help the teacher to act positively in the situation.
Attachment
Attachment theory has existed since the mid-twentieth century but has recently become more popular through social media. The basic principle is that a person’s attachment style is formed in those early stages of development (0–18 months) with the primary caregiver (usually a parent). Depending on the way in which the person experiences their needs being met, they will form a particular attachment pattern. There are four basic attachment styles, and being able to identify these in a young person can help inform best practice when it comes to teacher interaction:
Secure attachment: This is when a person feels comfortable with closeness and independence. They can trust that people will show up for them, can describe what they need without panicking, and do not assume that conflict means the relationship is ending.
Anxious attachment: This is when a person craves closeness and worries about losing this. They will be hypervigilant, noticing tiny changes in tone or behaviour. If someone pulls back, they might reach out more, seeking reassurance. If they are under stress, they can feel easily rejected or unsure of themselves. This style is shaped by inconsistent caregiving.
Avoidant attachment: This is when a person values independence and becomes uncomfortable with emotional intensity. They often deal with feelings alone, and when things get heavy, they may pull back to reset. A partner’s need for closeness can feel like pressure. This comes from early experiences where self-reliance felt safer than depending on others.
Disorganised (fearful-avoidant) attachment: This is when a person swings between anxious and avoidant behaviours. They want connection but also fear being hurt. They may reach out and then retreat quickly. This style often comes from early environments that felt unsafe or unpredictable.
Defence mechanisms
Defence mechanisms are unconscious coping mechanisms that keep our psyche safe. These are perfectly valid ways of keeping us mentally secure. Challenges arise when they begin to get in the way of everyday activities and our relationships. Let’s explore the main ones and what these might look like in a classroom setting:
Denial: This is when a person pretends something painful isn’t happening. For example, a young person may simply say that they are “fine” when it is clear from their body language that they are not.
Repression: This is when a person buries distressing memories or feelings so deeply that they are not aware of them. This is perhaps more challenging to observe in a classroom setting. Signs of repression can sometimes be seen when a young person’s behaviour appears to have been triggered by something where the connection is not very apparent. It can also be apparent in a person if they have difficulty recalling a particularly traumatic experience.
Projection: This is when a person sees their own uncomfortable feelings in someone else. For example, a teacher could feel angry with a colleague but is unable to accept these feelings, and so thinks that the colleague is angry with them.
Displacement: This is when a person takes their feelings out on a safer target. For example, if a young person trips over a chair leg in the classroom, then they may kick the chair, blaming the chair for the experience rather than accepting the pain, surprise, and embarrassment they are feeling. The chair is a safe target for these emotions.
Regression: This is when a person may begin to act younger than their age. In schools, young people are already teenagers, but a person may observe tantrum-like outbursts more closely related to toddler behaviour.
Reaction formation: This is when a person may act the opposite of how they are feeling in order to mask the emotions. For example, a young person may be overly nice to someone whom they do not like.
Intellectualisation: This is when a person focuses on the facts in order to avoid emotional pain. For example, if two individuals in the classroom have fallen out with each other, one of them may view this as a practical problem rather than acknowledge the hurt experienced.
Sublimation: This is when a person channels difficult feelings into something constructive. For example, a young person who is angry at being bullied may channel that energy into a creative anti-bullying campaign in the school. This is often considered to be a healthy form of defence.
Compartmentalisation: This is when a person may keep different parts of their life separate so that they do not clash emotionally. For example, a young person may have a difficult and unstable home life and will keep this separate from school life, which is a haven and wherein they can thrive.
Every classroom has an emotional climate
Seeing the classroom through a psychodynamic lens can really make a difference to how we see behaviour and respond to it. It is important to remember that some classroom environments contain over thirty individuals, each with their own unique “operating systems,” attachment styles, and defence mechanisms. Thinking about the emotional climate in this way helps us to become more aware of the unconscious processes that are working away in the background, beneath the surface. This can help the teacher to modify their approach to the young people in order to focus on connection rather than behaviour management.
When the classroom becomes an emotionally secure environment, everybody thrives. Going back to attachment theory, a secure base is an experience of stability, security, and predictability. If a classroom routine is regularly maintained with clear boundaries, then young people will feel safe and secure enough to grow and learn. A sense of belonging is the foundation upon which learning can begin.
So what can this look like in the classroom? If a young person is upset and emotionally dysregulated, then the first step is containment. This means that the teacher can hold the emotions presented by the student. Holding means being aware of the impact that these emotions have on the teacher as well as the young person. Containment leads to acceptance, and co-regulation of emotions can begin. The goal of the teacher is to create an environment in which the student can begin to self-regulate their emotions.
When the teacher becomes part of the story
Having an emotionally secure classroom is the goal, but how do we reach that point? What happens when you have that one class that you dread every week, where certain young people “push our buttons”? For example, a pupil could be constantly talking over you when you are addressing the class. This may cause a feeling of anger towards the pupil, as it may trigger feelings of disrespect or “not being heard”. This is where a psychodynamic perspective comes into its own. Knowing about unconscious processes, attachment, and defence mechanisms is really helpful for understanding the pupils, but it also shines a light on our own emotional processes. When one of our buttons is pushed, unconscious processes are being activated, resulting in responses that can be unhelpful.
The key to bringing the unconscious into our consciousness is self-reflection and reflective practice. If we are aware of our emotional responses to a particular situation, then we can become less reactive and more responsive to the young people. We need to ask ourselves, “What is this young person making me feel, and why?”
A different way of seeing behaviour
With all this in mind, the psychodynamic lens helps us to see pupil behaviour differently. We are able to respond differently in a way that supports the young person. For example, if a pupil is angry, we can wonder about what the anger might be protecting. If a pupil has the reputation of “class clown,” then we can see the humour as a self-defence mechanism. If one pupil is particularly quiet in the class, perhaps they are withdrawing as a form of self-protection. If another pupil is deeply affected by losing just one mark in a test, then we may see perfectionism as a form of anxiety. In all these cases, when the teacher changes their perspective, we begin to see behaviour as a communication of something deeper.
Five questions every teacher can ask
Here are five straightforward questions that you can ask yourself if you are in the teaching role:
What might a pupil’s behaviour be communicating?
What has happened to this young person?
What emotional need might sit underneath this behaviour?
How am I feeling in response?
What relationship does this pupil need from me today?
By answering these questions, a practitioner can become more reflective and build a lasting, successful connection with the young people in their classroom.
Final thoughts: Changing the lens builds connection
By experiencing, learning, and improving my teaching practice over the last twenty years, I am hopeful about the future of education in high schools. I can see that teachers today are much more psychologically aware than in the past, and this, together with greater self-awareness, can only be a positive force in education.
Psychodynamic thinking is less about analysing pupils in school and more about cultivating curiosity, compassion, and reflective practice. In Scottish secondary schools, where relationships are central to learning, adopting this lens can shift the focus from asking “What's wrong with this young person?” to “What might they be trying to tell us?” Psychodynamic thinking is not a luxury but a necessity in modern education.
When educators learn to look beneath behaviour, they don't simply manage classrooms more effectively, they create spaces where young people feel understood, safe enough to learn, and able to thrive. Connection is key.
You can find out more about the work that I do in this area here.
Read more from Edmund McKillop
Edmund McKillop, Counsellor and Psychotherapist
After studying philosophy and theology, Edmund McKillop trained to be a high school teacher. Early in his career, he became curious about the emotional interactions in the classroom and their effect on the educational experience. This led to a study of psychodynamic counselling. Fast forward twenty years, and Edmund now runs his own successful private practice and consultation service, using his unique skills and experience to transform the lives of individuals and enhance business and education performance.
