Frances Forde Plude

Theme-Centered Interactions (Tci): An Introduction

By Matthias Scharer, Institute of Practical Theology, University of Innsbruck, Austria

Abstract

This text gives a general introduction to the concept of theme-centered interaction (TCI) by Ruth C. Cohn. Cohn’s biography as founder of TCI, and the various influences she had on the approach, help to explain the background of the concept of “living learning.” The basic theory and practical elements of the TCI system continue to influence the reception of the concept in higher education. TCI is concerned especially with the challenges of cultural and religious diversity in social and educational fields.

1. What Is Theme-Centered Interaction?

TCI is the standard abbreviation for the concept discovered (or created) by Ruth C. Cohn in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. Another label for TCI is “living learning,” which emphasizes more the didactic intention behind this idea. As the official term “TCI by Ruth Cohn” indicates, the concept connects an understanding of living learning in groups with the biography, experiences, and reflections of its founder. More on this connection in the next section. 

Ruth C. Cohn was one of the most famous Humanistic Psychologists in the 20th century. She was born in Berlin into a German-Jewish family, like so many people in our contemporary world, to become an immigrant. Because of the emerging Nazi terror in Germany, she emigrated first to Switzerland and later to the United States. But the well-educated psychoanalyst failed to get a job in her profession. So, by necessity, she came into contact with education and pedagogical-didactic concepts while working with children. Later, she taught at different institutions, like Clark University in Massachusetts. After returning to Europe in the 1970s and taking up residence again in Switzerland, she was honored with numerous awards: honorary doctorates from the Universities of Hamburg and Bern as well as the Grand Cross of Merit for her works in the fields of psychology and pedagogy by the then President of Germany, Richard von Weizsäcker. Despite all the effort put into her work and the honors she received at a later age she never forgot the ambivalence life faces us with. Dealing with TCI as a didactic concept for higher education is not some neutral discourse about what makes learning effective; rather, it is an existential act of creating a learning theory and practice that is aware of the fundamental questions and needs of humans and human societies in a globalized world. It sounds like homage to her educational intentions when Ruth C. Cohn writes:

I want to have eyes that peer out of my room, beyond the flowers and the waterfalls and the birds, beyond the meadows and mountains and national borders, to see the boats afloat on the cold waves, full of women and children, raped by pirates, bereft of their last grain of rice and the last shirt on their back. I want to have ears that hear the cries of those drowning, the cries of men in torture chambers […] and the cries of women and children who must witness the pain of martyrdom of their loved ones. I want to encourage all those people who have suffered a misery they did not invite, not to resign, not to feel helpless, but to use their imagination and their capacity to act to express their solidarity and to remain active for as long as we can still feel autonomous forces in our souls” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 374).

TCI served her in accompanying children, youth, students, grown-ups, adults and elderly people toward a comprehensive awareness, solidarity and arising self-responsibility.

In the Handbook of Theme-Centered Interaction (cf. Schneider-Landolf et al. 2017, transl. by Joseph Smith), J. Spielmann defines TCI more systematically:

TCI is a comprehensive, holistic action concept that has the goal of shaping situations in which humans interact, work, live and learn together such that they consciously experience each other as humane and humanizing. The focus lies on taking action in groups, teams, and organizations. TCI represents a differentiated method of observing situations as well as controlling and accompanying social processes. This includes the tasks such as planning, leading, intervention, reflection, analysis, and diagnosis. The overall goal is to create professional and learning processes producing optimal results that reflect the common goals, the interactions between the various parties involved, and the individual interests and their circumstances. TCI relies on a vision of humanity and a value system that reflect the ability of humans to change and learn (Spielmann 2017, 14f).

In the last two decades, TCI has spread from Europe to India and other English-speaking countries. Therefore, any book on TCI in higher education in English which includes cross-cultural experiences will be beneficial. I think these experiences will have a high impact on intercultural didactics based on TCI and in general. In India, the first TCI Hindu and Muslim trainers graduated in 2016. In Ruth C. Cohn’s letters in the archive in Berlin she expressed her pleasure about the developments of TCI in different cultures besides Europe and the United States. She was interested in seeing TCI adapted to other cultures and contexts where the approach might also prove beneficial and fitting.

The Institute responsible for the quality of education during this cross-cultural expansion of TCI was the Ruth Cohn Institute for TCI International (RCI international), which offers TCI training on three levels:

• Basic training

• Advanced training

• Graduation (Certified Trainer) 

In addition to my own experiences in encounter groups (sensitivity training), gestalt groups, systemic work, supervision, and my academic qualifications in history, theology, and didactics, I qualified at all three levels of TCI training. For the past 25 years I have been working as a certified TCI trainer mainly in the academic field as well as in cross-cultural and trans-religious groups in different countries. Having qualifications in specific professional fields and a broad experience in group work, especially in TCI, corresponds to the typical profile of a certified TCI trainer. 

2. Involvements

“It’s the writing for ‘science’ that deadens me.“ I found this confession in Ruth C. Cohn’s “logbook” where she noted her thoughts day by day during her visiting professorship at Clark University (Massachusetts) in 1973. She had found her new style of writing through interacting with the readers of her texts. She writes: “[…] a new spirit in writing which lets the person come in, and I learned so much from each of them – while I have so much trouble with the kind of books that quote and define without flesh and blood” (entry of January 20, 1973). This experience demonstrates her high level of writing about a concept that has influenced didactics for decades and continues to do so today. I hope Ruth C. Cohn would not be disturbed by my quoting her since the sources are near to me and not at all “without flesh and blood.”

When I am working with larger or smaller groups according to the TCI style, the process of learning always lies at the center of my thoughts – not some abstract theory of didactics. It is also present in my mind when I am preparing a lecture for a large audience, in which case, it becomes an inner process that leads me intuitively through the main aspects of the TCI concept. For the most part, my work does not demand my explaining TCI, but benefiting from it. When working with groups and classes, introducing “TCI theory” happens organically, step by step, while experiencing the actual TCI process. When “learning” TCI in the context of didactics in higher education, this seems to me generally crucial. Ever since the book “The Shift from Teaching to Learning” (cf. Welbers & Gaus 2005) appeared, the learning process of students (and lectures) lies at the center of attention. Dealing with this idea of learning instead of teaching in practice comes close to the ideal of TCI. 

While writing this introduction to TCI, I have tried to balance out the core insights culled from the enormous literature (this is my “It,” the topic as a writer), while adding experiences of my own and others, especially of Ruth C. Cohn (the “I perspective”) and insights taken from concrete interactional processes (the “We perspective). All this happens in a context (the “Globe” as environment) of (post-)modern society, research, and practice in didactics. For years, I have worked with mixed Muslim-Christian students at my university[1] as well as with cross-cultural and trans-religious groups in India (cf. Scharer 2017a) and other countries. So, the actual “Globe,” in the sense of a globalized, post-migration world (cf. Yildiz 2018), is strongly embedded in my mind. I am convinced that, -- in a world in which individuality, plurality and diversity, sympathy and empathy, resonance and response, on the one hand, as well as a new upcoming individualism, populism, nationalism and fundamentalism (leading right up to violence), on the other hand, are a stark reality -- the humanistic inspiration of the Jewish immigrant Ruth C. Cohn can stimulate the didactics of all higher education.

I was not part of the “inner circle” of Ruth C. Cohn when she came back to Europe after her immigration, first to Switzerland and later to the States. I met this inspirational woman first around 1993, when she invited a group of my university students and myself[2] to participate in a short workshop with her at her home in Hasliberg/Goldern (Switzerland), where she had settled after moving back from the United States to Europe. From then on, we stayed in contact. I last saw her about 1 year before her death in 2010 at the house of Helga Herrmann in Düsseldorf (Germany).

Together with my wife Michaela, I am working on registering the huge spiritual heritage of Ruth C. Cohn at the Archive of the Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany). Working on this legacy, combined with the deep connection between my understanding of what TCI means and the biography of its founder, has brought her even closer to my heart and mind. When separated from the story of its founder, TCI results in a superficial meaning. Based on this insight, in the next section I reflect on the influence and importance of Ruth C. Cohn had the concept of TCI, especially with respect to didactic issues.

3. The Inspiration of a Famous Jewish Immigrant

Storytelling is today a familiar aspect of didactics. It introduces learners to their specific tasks and topics. In this text I would like to attempt a particular kind of storytelling: recounting the story of the famous Jewish immigrant who broadly influenced didactics.

In a globalized and (post-)migration context, it seems essential to me to highlight the immigrant status of the founder of TCI (cf. Cohn 1970b). When I met with Ruth C. Cohn for the last time in the house of Helga Herrmann, who was taking care of her, Helga told me that Ruth was suffering severely from painful memories, like those of images of the Nazi regime. The doors and windows to the house had to be closed and barricaded to prevent the Gestapo from entering. 

3.1. Childhood, Youth, and Nazi Terror

Ruth C(harlotte) Cohn, née Hirschfeld, was born in 1912 in Berlin and died in 2010 in Düsseldorf (Germany). She grew up in a liberal Jewish family. Her parents – her mother was a pianist, her father a businessman – were pleasant people who took good care of her. She had a wonderful childhood and adolescence – until the Nazi terror spread throughout Germany and threatened young Ruth and her boyfriend. As an intelligent student, Ruth C. Cohn had, of course, read Hitler’s Mein Kampf (as well as The Capital of Karl Marx) and was acutely aware what would happen with the Jews in Germany.

Before all this occurred, however, her conviction was that she was a born poet. She had written poetry from the age of 7 and she wanted to make a career out of it (cf. Cohn 1949; 1965; 1990). But then she was told that one could not make a living as a poet. Her father believed that, even if a girl were to marry, she should have a profession by which she could earn a living if necessary. Becoming a journalist seemed to be an acceptable compromise. With this aim in mind, she started studying economics in Heidelberg. During the first semester, however, she discovered that economics was not going to be her subject. But in Heidelberg, she also met Gundolf, the celebrated author who had done research on Goethe, who quickly became Ruth C. Cohn’s idol. Goethe and his pantheism became a significant influence on her worldview. 

During the second semester, she returned to Berlin and met her first boyfriend. His mother was a psychoanalyst. So, for the first time, Ruth C. Cohn heard the word psychoanalysis. From this time on she was determined to become a therapist. But it was also around 1932 that the Nazis attacked her Jewish friend together with other politically active Jewish students. It became clear to Ruth C. Cohn that she could no longer study in Berlin. 

3.2 Emigration to Switzerland and the Psychoanalytic Couch

At the end of March 1933 – one day before the first boycott of Jews occurred in Germany – Ruth C. Cohn officially went to Zurich to continue her studies. Living in Switzerland as a student meant not having refugee status. Thus, she could not stop studying because they would then have expelled her. “Up to 1941, Ruth Cohn studied psychology as well as education, theology, literature, and philosophy in Zurich […]” (Greving 2017, 17). In addition to her studies at the university, the most decisive experience in Zurich was Ruth’s intense training in psychoanalysis:

Between 1933 and 1939, six times a week I spent 50 minutes on the couch. My analyst listened to me patiently. He was young and attractive. I knew that, however, only because I saw him once when I entered or once when I left the room when we shook hands (Cohn & Farau 42008, 214). 

The irony of the last sentence of this quotation reveals a point of criticism that Ruth C. Cohn subsequently turned against classic psychoanalysis. This criticism spawned her lifelong quest for alternative therapeutic opportunities and procedures. She was horrified at realizing that, during analysis, her psychoanalyst had become the center of her life: 

My thoughts and my feelings revolved around his person, his questions, his statements, his attitudes. I believed that he had some special knowledge, and that he was leading me infallibly, so that, if the analysis did not go well, it would be entirely my fault (Cohn & Farau 42008, 214). 

The “positive” therapeutic transfer neurosis Ruth C. Cohn suffered from during her years of psychoanalysis was fostered by the dogmatical psychoanalytic setting. The resolution of her therapeutic transfer dependency occurred because of events that lay outside the psychoanalytic setting. Her analyst had advised Ruth C. Cohn not to make any existentially important decisions during analysis. But, in 1938, she had to marry her boyfriend Hans Helmut Cohn because it was the only way to save his parents from the gas chambers. In 1940, her daughter Heidi was born. She met many other challenges as a Jewish emigrant during this time, for example, losing her German citizenship in 1936. Furthermore, she started using her German middle “Charlotte” only with an abbreviation (C.). Despite all these experiences and her critique of her own analysis, she never lost her vision that psychoanalysis could trigger a new, more humane approach. She was convinced the deep self-knowledge that psychotherapy provides enables better self-management and new ways of educating others (see Cohn & Farau 42008, 216).

In the end, her analyst was called up for military service as a doctor, so her analysis was terminated by the political situation, “an analytic miracle took place” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 216):

Personal letters began arriving from my analyst who had formerly been so very orthodox and abstemious. He had never spoken about himself and almost never expressed any of his feelings. Now he wrote about his experiences as a doctor and as a border guard, about his feelings, about his activity, and about the problems of the time.

A second miracle happened when my first child was born. My former analyst happened to be on leave just then, and he brought me a huge bouquet of flowers. He was very touched and told me why the birth of a child was so very important to him – now, at this time, and in this situation (Cohn & Farau 42008, 216).

It is crucial to understanding about where TCI comes from, to understand the underlying experiences of Ruth C. Cohn during her first emigration to Switzerland. Her experience was ambivalent: On the one hand, she experienced an intense psychoanalysis in the style of S. Freud on the conviction that, if more people would do so, it would create a more humane awareness within all the violence. On the other hand, she expressed critique of the “couch setting” in light of the political abstinence of psychoanalysis. Confronted with new therapeutic developments, political issues, and pedagogical insights, Ruth C. Cohn discovered TCI during her second emigration – this time to the United States. 

3.3 Emigration to the United States and the Discovery of TCI

In 1941, Ruth C. Cohn left Switzerland with her husband and her daughter Heidi. Their decision to leave Switzerland was triggered by the (false) report in the media that the Germans had passed the border and entered Switzerland. The odyssey experienced by the many immigrants today was part of Ruth C. Cohn’s second emigration experience: 

We were put in a sealed train car and traveled through the unoccupied part of France. After a veritable odyssey […] we reached Lisbon and got on one of the last ships to cross the ocean after the outbreak of World War II. (Cohn & Farau 42008, 217)

Upon arriving in the United States, Ruth C. Cohn had to overcome many obstacles. “The emigration 1941 to America was flight and hope. I hardly can find images of the first years […],” she told her friend Helga Herrmann later (Herrmann 21993, 28). Reading her notes from her first years in the United States touches me deeply:

• Without a medical degree, this highly qualified psychoanalyst failed to get a work permit for the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

• The relationship to her husband became more and more difficult. Hans Helmut became staff doctor at a public psychiatric hospital in New York State, and Ruth was allowed to test patients and do therapy with children there. After one year’s time, she took a leave from the hospital. In the end, she divorced her husband after giving birth to her second child, Peter, in 1944.

• The two grandmothers took care of the small children while she was establishing –in the evening up to midnight – a psychoanalytic practice in New York.

• Personal illness and her role as a working single mother produced deep conflicts in her.

What enabled Ruth C. Cohn to survive?

• Her work as an assistant teacher in the Bank Street Schools, where she experienced a progressive teacher training: “Living learning” – I had yet to discover this term and had not heard it used by others. Looking back, I now know that Bank Street was the source of my love for living learning: following in the tracks laid by the child’s interest” (Cohn & Farau, 42008, 327).

• She met the Viennese psychoanalyst Theodor Reik (1948) and became head of the Training Committee of his training institute, called the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP). 

• She became acquainted with Harry Stack Sullivan’s thoughts on an open form of psychotherapy based on the interpersonal relationship, which she experienced with the psychoanalyst Ruth Forster.

• She learned to pay attention to bodily signals and the creative therapeutic group work like that found in meeting with L. Moreno and his psychodrama approach.

• Her contact with Humanistic Psychology through G. Bach, H. and V. Guze (Cohn 1971b, 6-7; 23-25), F. Perls, E. Polster, C. Rogers, V. Satir, J. Warkentin and C. Whitaker. The two nearest to her in this humanistic movement were C. Rogers with his client-centered psychotherapy and F. Perls with his gestalt therapy. 

• Overcoming the therapeutic distance through “normal” communication proved to be a revolutionary experience that would never leave Ruth C. Cohn. It was crucial to the development of her approach.

The development of TCI by Ruth C. Cohn is a classic example of how pedagogical and didactic approaches are not discovered at a theoretical, discursive level. Nevertheless, to understand something about TCI, it seems helpful to travel some steps further in the shoes of its founder and take a more in-depth look at what the approach means (Cohn 1969, 31).

3.4 A Vital Dream: The Birth of TCI

The context in which TCI was “born” was a workshop on counter transference[3] led by Ruth C. Cohn in 1955. During the lengthy process concerned with how to teach TCI, a dream played a significant role. In this dream, she saw an equilateral pyramid. Upon waking it was evident to her that she had literally “dreamed up” the basis of her work. In her interpretation, the four points of the pyramid represent the four aspects important to group work. These points – later modified in favor of the image of a triangle within a circle – are all interconnected and equally important. They are:

• The person interacting with others and with the theme at hand (= I)

• The group members who become a group by attending to the theme at hand and through their interaction (= We)

• The theme at hand, the task as being apparent before the group (= It)

• The environment, which influences the group and is influenced by the group, i.e., the umwelt in the narrowest and broadest sense of the word (= Globe) (Cohn & Farau 42008, 343).

For Ruth C. Cohn, groups are always embedded in a certain environment. This environment can be seen, either as this specific space and moment, or as something as big as the universe. In an interview, she explains:

In any case, we find ourselves caught up in an environment. So, symbolically, we can imagine this idea as a triangle, with all angles and sides equal, and enclosed in a sphere representing the infinity around us. … And this is the idea: any group is basically a triangle, consisting of I, YOU, and IT. But the specific method that we call Theme-Centered Interaction is an interaction, an interplay between people around the topic. This method has the characteristic that these three points are seen as being equally important. You see, if you have a lecture, only two elements are important: the lecturer and the subject matter. And the listeners sit in a row, and they don’t see each other; they’re not supposed to; it is the same case in a classroom. Perhaps in a classroom, the students know one another; however, the system forces them not to work together, but against one another, to see who are the best among them, for only the best, second best, third best, and so on, has a chance in life. To counter that tendency – now I come back to therapy – let me say, we should nowadays do population therapy, saying, we are all equally important; we are human beings. And wherever we find ourselves in groups, in families, in villages, in communities, in schools, in parishes, everywhere we are all important human beings with different functions and different tasks (Scharer & Hilberath 2008, 110f.). 

At first, Ruth C. Cohn spoke about her approach as the “theme-centered interactional method” (TIM) (Cohn, 1971a). “In the original German translations of her English writings, Ruth Cohn used the term ‘thematische interaktionelle Methode, TIM’ (literally thematic interactional method)” (Schneider-Landolf 2017, 147). Later on, she changed the term to “theme-centered interaction” because she was afraid (and disturbed) that the methodological aspect would overrule the humanistic attitude aspect, which is mainly expressed in the axioms and postulates of TCI (see section 3 of this text). 

In 1966, together with Norman Liberman, Ruth C. Cohn founded the Workshop Institute for Living Learning (WILL) in New York (cf. Gordon & Liberman 1972, 2001). There, group therapists and supervisors came together to implement TCI in non-therapeutic groups and institutions. WILL Canada, was later established with the same intention. The step of enabling TCI in teaching facilities and institutions was thus achieved. The first workshops at WILL were orientated toward social issues: “Segregation – Collision – Co-Existence – Integration” was one of the first themes treated at WILL. It expressed the goal of integrating citizens of all colors (“Blacks and Whites”) in social institutions. Using TCI in the field of learning resulted in directly satisfying socio-political consequences. 

3.5 The Couch Is Too Small: Therapy and Education for All

For Ruth C. Cohn, it was a long journey from doing therapy with individuals to working in and with groups. In the process, she came to develop an approach that, not only served to heal specific personality and group conflicts, but above all worked preventively to help people to help themselves. Increasingly, Ruth C. Cohn foresaw the application of her approach “to large sections of population” (Matzdorf & Cohn 21992, 1272) or even “to society” as a whole. Having lived as a refugee herself, this middle-class woman had experienced social needs first- hand: “This is how I moved from individuals to society; the circumstances forced me to do so” (Cohn, 1989, 86). She later explained:

The couch was too small. The new world of discovering the psychodynamic laws could as a matter of principle lead to a conscience-expanding, humanizing pedagogy, but how? For over 30 years I have worked in the historical process of personal and mental interaction on a systematic attempt to integrate pedagogical-therapeutic elements in teaching as well as other groups of communication (Cohn 162009, 7). 

In 1965-1966 Ruth C. Cohn completed an additional course in gestalt therapy with Fritz Perls, from which she appropriated much for her own concept. But she had problems with a kind of autonomy that is not balanced with a person’s interdependence and social responsibility, as expressed in Perl’s “Gestalt Prayer”: 

I do what I do, and you do what you do.
I am not in the world to live up to your expectations.
You are not in the world to live up to mine.
You are you and I am I.
If we find one another by chance – wonderful!
If not, there is nothing one can do about it. (Perls 81996, 13).

Perl’s way of thinking regarding “I am I, and you are you …” and his notion of self-support were taken up by Ruth C. Cohn and further developed in another direction:

I want to do what I am doing. I am I. 
You want to do what you are doing. You are you.
The world is our task. It does not meet our expectations.
However, if we commit ourselves to it, it will become beautiful.
If we don’t, it won’t (Cohn 1974, 164). 

One can recognize in these thoughts Ruth C. Cohn’s awareness of society and politics, also apparent in a speech she gave at the Theodor Reik Clinique in 1957, titled “Courage – The Goal of Psychotherapy” (cf. Cohn 1957). I found the manuscript in the archives. It seems to me still very current and fitting for a didactic concept for the path to a post-migration society. Courageous persons are aware of dangers and therefore know fears. They are, however, relatively free of anxiety. Anxiety is not fear of immediate danger but a “hangover fear” of previous – real or imaginary – threats. “Anxiety is like a bag of fears dragged along from earlier years” (Cohn 1957, 11). For Ruth C. Cohn “…courage is one of our most precious abilities in daily living. So, we may indeed want to be sure to help develop courage […]” (Cohn 1957, 10).  

With respect to education, Cohn remarks in her speech:

Courageous people create schools where children do not sit still for many years to learn little more than three “R’s” and to conform to thought patterns of prejudice which have kept society from progress; schools will be places where children are inspired to use their imagination, thoughtfulness, and creativity – so they will be eager to improve our world rather than to stagnate (Cohn 1957, 15).

The courage to change the educational system is not only related to schools. Working with TCI in higher education always has a social and political component to it as well. It does not only matter what goes on in the classroom; the whole learning system of universities and colleges in their capacity as the influential Globe comes into mind. Questions come up concerning the lower importance of learning in the science-oriented world of universities (Knauf 2005, 183), hierarchies, architecture, learning settings, etc.

3.6 “To Give Too Little Is Theft; To Give Too Much Is Murder”

One cannot understand Ruth C. Cohn’s approach to education without looking at her close relationship with children. This relationship was conditioned by having to raise her two children herself. After she was divorced from her husband, she had to take care of the two children, Heidi and Peter, as a single mother:

Nobody taught me more about human relationships or education than my own children. From the time they were born (in Heidi’s case until she got married, in Peter’s case until he went to college) they were at one and the same time the object of a loving relationship and my most important task in life (Cohn & Farau 42008, 331).

Despite this closeness, Ruth C. Cohn did not become nostalgic about her children and their education. Quite the opposite, she wrote openly about the doubts that she had in her everyday decisions regarding their education. For years, the idea that she had to be a perfect mother who could make no mistakes stood in the way. For a long time, her own educational approach was directed toward the future of her children rather than toward their present:

Only slowly did I come to learn from and with, my children to treasure the present moment, to trust that the guidelines of my action would always be revealed in becoming, that is, in the process of living. […] Parents and children are both teachers and learners. If solutions for conflicts are sought in openness, humility, and love, errors on both sides will not be disastrous. The tools for the dialogue are not violence, but rather the inner and outer reality (Cohn & Farau 42008, 332). 

The above-mentioned Bank Street School, designed around the program of “progressive education,” was for Ruth C. Cohn, “the source of my love for living learning” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 327). With the utmost attention and engagement, she took part in the learning processes and immediate experiences of the children: 

[…] to track the steps of a child’s interest from the crib to the floor, from the floor to the doorway, from the doorway into the next room, to mother’s feet and then up to her knees, then up to the table and over to the dangerous stove, from the kitchen to the doorway opening onto the street – with all its noisy cars, buses, building sites – out to the playground, to the trains, the subways, to the airport. All of these stations along the way leading from one here-and-now to the next, to another…. For it is in the here-and-now of experience that lies the starting point of all learning. Learning is not something imposed from above, but rather it is something to be grasped in a living way with body, soul, intellect, and spirit. (Cohn & Farau 42008, 327.)

The importance of what we can learn from the story becomes apparent. Nevertheless, Ruth C. Cohn judged certain aspects in the Bank Street School’s educational system as problematic, for example, the exclusively technical orientation of the school, the repression of personal feelings on the part of the teachers, the children’s power over the teaching staff. She called for a means of balance between “giving too much” and “giving too little”: “To give too little is theft; to give too much is murder,” Cohn concluded (1981, 23-27). Rather, there is a need for “accepting one’s own authority as well as own fallibility” (Cohn 1985, 676-683).

3.7 Back to Europe

It was not easy for a Jewish immigrant to go back to Europe. When Ruth C. Cohn was invited to the Fourth International Congress on Group Psychotherapy, she met with Austrian and German colleagues working in the same field. The reaction of a participant at the Congress in Vienna may have built the first bridge enabling her to go back after all that had happened to the Jews. She reports:

At the end of the congress, an elderly gentleman came up to me and excitedly said: “I now realize why they let us contemplate things in silence and allowed us to speak as ‘I’: That was their way of avoiding mass suggestion and mass hysteria.” I had never thought about silence in this way. […] That this was one of the first comments a participant from Germany offered on TCI made me feel happy for a long time (Cohn & Farau 42008, 380).

Also, she “felt uneasy at first; being in this German-Austrian environment, surrounded by the unaccustomed German language. But that soon passed in light of the heartfelt welcome I received from my colleagues,” said Ruth C. Cohn (Cohn & Farau 42008, 376).

During these first contacts in Europe, like the Psychotherapy Meetings in Lindau (Cohn 208, 65-79), she planned a new institute in the States. After having a difficult time as a refugee, she had now become well known in psychotherapeutic as well as in educational circles of North America. In 1971, she was honored with the “Psychologist of the Year Award” by the New York Society for Clinical Psychology. In 1973, she held a guest professorship at Clark University in Massachusetts, at the same institution from which S. Freud received his “Doctor of Laws honoris causa” in 1909 (cf. Freud Museum in Vienna).

In the end, Ruth C. Cohn had to decide whether to stay in America and to visit Europe from time to time as she had done since 1968, or to move to Europe again. In 1972, before moving back to Europe, some German and Swiss colleagues founded WILL Europe. At the same time, the first curriculum was being devised for TCI group leaders. In 1973, Cohn closed her American practice and moved to Switzerland, where she settled in the vicinity of the Ecole d’Humanité, an alternative school in Hasliberg, in the Bern Highlands. In what she called the “big view from a small apartment” – her description of her tiny 40 m2 apartment in a farmhouse – many a disciple, friend, and acquaintance came and went. Her hospitality, her mastery of dialogue, her openness, but also her capacity for social and political commitment, were something I, too, had the privilege of experiencing firsthand while on a visit with a couple of theology students from Linz. In a matter of minutes, she engaged the students in an intensive discourse on their relationship to church and society. With her long flowing hair, the nearly 70-year-old Ruth, sitting on her “bouncing ball,” looked like the youngest as well as the most mature member of the group.

According to the documents of the Ruth Cohn Archive in Berlin, Ruth C. Cohn received the greatest attention during the 1980s and 1990s, due to the wide range of workshops and lectures she held and the many awards she received. When she was to be honored with the title of honorary doctor (Dr. Phil. h.c.) by the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Hamburg, the students had been involved in a strike against the university systems for months. Ruth C. Cohn heard about this. Spontaneously she arrived a few days before the designated celebration and conducted group work with students and held lectures. Newspapers spoke of “the great communicator who prevents violence and brings enemies together.” The nearly 3,500 letters in the archive bear witness to the many important communication partners of Ruth C. Cohn in the areas of pedagogy, philosophy, religion/theology, therapy, politics, etc. Much research on TCI was going on at this time. There is not enough space in this chapter to report on all the famous and influential workshops she facilitated to the end of her life. A comprehensive bibliography on TCI is available at the homepage of the RCI International under the research button.

In the last years (cf. Cohn 1987, 210-221) of her life, Ruth C. Cohn lived in Düsseldorf in the house of Helga Herrmann, who took care of her. She died there in 2010 at the high age of 98 and was buried in the “Waldfriedhof.”

4. The Basics of TCI

Working on the basics of TCI means being confronted with huge amount of literature available in different languages. What I therefore offer to the reader at the beginning of this section is a list the most common sources.

4.1 Secondary Literature on TCI – An Overview of Sources

The concept of TCI was described in detail by Ruth C. Cohn herself in various publications (cf. Cohn 1971; 1972a; 1972b; 1979b; cf. Matzdorf & Cohn 1993; Cohn & Farau 42008, 351-374). Further, numerous other authors wrote about the approach (cf. Birmelin et al. 1985; cf. Löhmer & Standhardt 1992a, 1992b; cf. Raguse 1993; cf. Matzdorf 52007; Cohn & Terfurth 52007, 332–387ff; cf. Langmaack 22011). A modern presentation may be found in the Handbook of TCI (German: Schneider-Landolf et al. 32014), which is now also available in an English translation by J. Smith (cf. Schneider-Landolf et al. 2017).

Reiser and Lotz (cf. 1995) describe TCI with all its benefits for educational contexts. More recently, Reiser (cf. 2006) describes TCI as a professional educational concept, while W. Lotz (cf. 2003) points out the value of TCI in social educational settings.

In interviews with contemporary witnesses (cf. Bertels et al. 2015), one can find memories and interpretations concerning the beginnings of TCI. Conversations with Ruth C. Cohn from 1988 on have also been published (cf. Bühlman-Jecklin 2010). Elementary texts on TCI were reprinted in the TCI journal, which has been published continually twice a year since 1987 (von Kanitz et al., 2015). An anthology on TCI in English was published in India (cf. Kuebel & Abraham 2002). Also, a journal on TCI was published in India from 2006 to 2012.

The TCI bibliography my wife and I are working on comprises to date approximately 1,600 entries[4]. The Ruth Cohn Archive at the Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany), which will be opened to researchers about 10 years after Ruth C. Cohn death (i.e., in 2020), will offer new opportunities for doing research on TCI and on Ruth C. Cohn herself. Also, the history of Ruth C. Cohn in the previous section contains the basics of TCI, which should become clearer in this section. According to H. Reiser, TCI “contains an independent educational theory that is not jet fully explained in its current form of representation” (Reiser 2014, 69).[5]

It is not possible to summarize all the literature pertaining to the overall content and theory of TCI. One of the characteristics of TCI seems to be that “theory” and “practice” are very closely related, and that a large variety of persons with very different qualifications practice and reflect it. Therefore, we should acknowledge the manifold literature on TCI while also keeping in mind the “viewpoint” an article or book has. In Section 2 I try to make my own involvements apparent which form the basis for my descriptions of the (theoretical) basics of TCI.

4.2. Being Your Own Chairperson: Self-Responsibility and (Conditional) Freedom in the Dialectic of Autonomy and Interdependency 

Contemporary didactics reflect the common shift from teaching to learning (Berendt 2005, 35-41; Deneke 2005, 93-96; Welbers 2005, 357-365). Changing the culture of teaching and learning is a big goal (cf. Schneider et al., 2009). Learning is an educational and an existential experience, and we need to reflect on it from the vantage point of the learners (Schratz et al., 2012, 21-30). This “new” trend in higher education contains TCI-adequate thinking from the very beginning. How university scholars can support their students in their growing and learning is a crucial question of modern didactics. However, within the didactic discourse on how to “make” a successful learning process, the underlying question, that is, what the basic intentions for the learning processes are, actually, remain nebulous. 

The inclusive concept of TCI bridges the gap between cognition and emotion by balancing the different aspects of learning: The individual and the interactional aspect, the content, and the contextual aspect. This is done by teaching living learning as an attitude and a method. The attitude tends to be contained in the TCI axioms and postulates, the method more in the so-called TCI factors – dynamic balance, the formulation of theme as the focus of a learning process, etc. (see section 5 of this article.). It is important that attitude and method are not seen as isolated or in a specific order. Rather, all aspects are interconnected, and what is most important is what happens among all these elements.

If we reflect on the terms “axioms and postulates,” which are sometimes not distinguished from one another, we see that these terms are used mainly in logic and mathematics. Their application extends back to antiquity and refers to principles that are accepted without proof, that are “self-evident.” If one wishes to distinguish axioms and postulates, one may refer to the Greek mathematician Geminos (2nd century BC), who says “… that an axiom concerns perceptibility, whereas the postulate deals with implementation” (Kanitz 2017, 73). In this sense, the (three) TCI axioms reveal the image of mankind, the idea of a good life of all human beings, all creatures, and ultimately of the whole cosmos. The two postulates resemble motives and goals in the implementation of TCI in the sense of their axioms. The axioms and postulates express the “holistic” image of humanity in TCI. Inherent is the assumption of a psychosomatic integrity of personality. According to U. Faßhauer, “TCI does not foresee a separation between rationality (cognition) and feelings (emotions). The corporeality of all human activities lies at the core of TCI theory” (Faßhauer 2017, 75f).

TCI resembles the philosophy of the Austrian-born Jewish philosopher M. Buber, who is best known for his philosophy of dialogue, centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship (cf. Buber 1983). Reiser is of the opinion “that M. Buber's philosophy of dialog and encounter is very close to the attitude of theme-centered interaction, yes, even deepens it, while the method of theme-centered interaction can promote Buber’s desired realization” (Reiser 1993, 39).

In the reception of TCI theory in communicative theology, my own field of expertise, we also found connections to the philosophy of E. Lévinas and P. Ricoeur (Hilberath & Scharer 2012, 134-138). Ruth C. Cohn never tired of emphasizing the inseparable “cohesion of human and intellectual value and its specific methodological approach,” and of resisting any attempt to reduce the TCI to a technology for managing group processes (Cohn 1979, 253). This also holds for the theory and practice of didactics in higher education. Despite one’s desire to find some way to better handle group processes, TCI cannot be the sole method.

4.3 Dialectic Opposites and the Synthesis of Autonomy and Interdependence 

Leading students to autonomy is the main goal of (post)modern didactics. Knauf sees as an important trend in higher education, that “learning and education are being placed more and more in the responsibility of the individuals” (Knauf 2005, 184). Yet TCI shows us much more coherence than a simple “autonomy trip.” The first axiom “outlines a theory of development according to which the dialectical opposites of autonomy and interdependence are consciously transformed into a synthesis. […] It stands paradigmatically for a structure of thought that examines opposites and paradoxes and, if possible, transfers them through conscious awareness and decision into a productive development” (Reiser 2014, 71).

The first axiom is: 

Human beings are psychobiological entities and a part of the universe. They are equally autonomous and interdependent. The autonomy of individuals is all the much larger, the greater they are aware of their interdependence with all and everything (Farau & Cohn 42008, 356).

By acknowledging this main truth, we humans become relational, communicative subjects faced with the challenge of solving the riddle of autonomy and interdependence such that a constructive development becomes possible both in oneself and in other people. Independence and autonomy are dialectically interwoven: “I am all the more autonomous, the more I consciously enter into the world” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 357). Growing self-awareness leads to growing world-awareness – and vice versa.

Based on this insight, there arises a specific cultural and social relationship in human beings. The appropriation of the world lies from early childhood on in the tension between self-reliance and self-responsibility and the interdependency of people; individual development occurs in which the dialectic of autonomy and interdependence becomes more and more conscious in one’s own life. The tension between the poles of self-determination and self-reliance and interdependence/influence is included in TCI as a basic anthropological constant. “Personal and individual development always takes place in connection with other human beings whenever ‘themes’ (tasks) are being processed” (Faßhauer 2017, 75). A person becomes fully human by addressing the world with its many challenges, assignments, and knowledge.

With respect to the dialectical link between autonomy and interdependence, the first axiom – in its original form – touches on the question of the relationship between past, present, and future. In approaches from Humanistic Psychology, such as gestalt therapy and education, attention is directed almost exclusively toward the here-and-now: The only thing that counts is what I am experiencing at this very moment with “hand, heart, and mind.” Everything else is irrelevant. Contrary to this attitude, for Ruth C. Cohn events in the past, present, and future belong inseparably together: “My here-and-now is merely one of my human dimensions. The here-and-now world, without an awareness of the future laying within, is shallow” (Cohn 1974, 167).

Upholding the dialectic opposites and the synthesis of autonomy and interdependence in the context of higher education as a “productive paradox” is not easy, especially with today’s trend toward “speed education,” aiming foremost at earning certificates (Knauf 2005, 184) and quickly adopting skills. The idea of giving space to autonomy and interdependence is connected closely with the first TCI postulate of being one’s own chairperson. 

4.4 Be Your Own Chairperson – The Humanistic Call to Activate Self-Responsibility and Self-Assertiveness to Decide

In the dialectic of autonomy and interdependence, human beings move – from childhood on –along a variety of ambivalences that cannot simply be ruled out or decided on, in the one or the other direction. The chairperson postulate, which is presented after the first axiom, does not solve these ambivalences, yet it does also not leave us helpless. Becoming one’s own chairperson is a lifelong process that starts in childhood. The more you become aware of your internal and external workings, the more mature and autonomous decisions you can come to. It is crucial how didactic theories and practices deal with this aspect. Whether an approach hinders or supports students (and teachers) in realizing their own chairpersonship is a central qualitative factor. The optimistic view TCI takes empathizes the role of chairpersonship in every human being as a personal and social ability that can be broadened through courses of higher education.

The original formulation of the chairperson postulate is as follows:

Be your own chairman, the chairman of yourself. That means:

1. Be aware of your inner reality and of your environment.

2. Consider every situation to be a proposition for your decisions. Take and give as befits being responsible for yourself and for others (Cohn 1975, 120f). 

For reasons of gender consciousness, the postulate was eventually renamed as the “chairperson postulate” and thus reads: “Be your own chairperson …” For Röhling, the chairperson postulate “is a humanistic call to be autonomous, self-responsible, self-assertive, and not controlled by ideals or authorities” (Röhling 2017, 89). This includes an intrapersonal and an interpersonal dimension. The first step to developing the chairperson ability is a kind of contemplative introspection to activate one’s inner voices in order to differentiate what should be done (moral/ethical impulses), what would I like to do (own desires and convictions), and what must be done in a specific situation (reality). Confusions arise when these aspects are mixed together – when I do not see clearly what I want (volition). Maintaining proper contact with one’s “organismic value system” (see the “ethical” axiom), a part of all humans, leads to strong personal decisions that cannot be manipulated or “succumb to the pull of the masses. Therein lies the origin of the political-social effectiveness of the chairperson postulate” (ibid., 90). One of the main goals in higher education is to support young academics to become independent thinkers.

The chairperson postulate is strongly connected with the “I” of the autonomous and interdependent subject with its conditional freedom to make self-responsible decisions. The more one’s inner voices are activated in decision making, the more mature a decision can be: 

Listen to your inner voices, to your various needs, wishes, motivations, ideas; use all your senses, listen, see, smell, observe. Use your spirit, your knowledge, your power of judgment, your responsibility, your capacity to think. Weigh your decisions carefully. No one can take your decisions away from you. You are the most important person in your world, just as I am in mine. We must be able to express ourselves clearly when we talk to each other and listen to each other carefully as this is the only bridge between one island and another (Cohn, 162009, 164). 

A further development concerning the clarification of internal conflicts can be found, among others, in the texts of Schulz von Thun (cf. 1998), who uses the concept of the “inner team” by V. Satir with explicit reference to Ruth C. Cohn (Röhling 2017, 92).

On the path from the intrapersonal to the interpersonal dimension of the chairperson postulate, the four-factor model of TCI can be helpful for clearing up the demands of the I, the We, the tasks, and the Globe: “Practice perceiving both yourself and others; give yourself and others the same attention; respect all facts such that you extend your freedom of decisions; take yourself, your environment, and the task at hand seriously” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 359f.).

According to Matzdorf and Cohn (cf. 1992), the central therapeutic and political intervention of TCI is expressed in the chairperson postulate. It enables both human individuality and solidarity. By recognizing the diversity of people, the postulate encourages interaction by true encounter. This excludes both individualism and collectivism in the sense of “isms” as extremes to be avoided. The chairperson postulate regulates the oscillation between arrogance and resignation. It encourages us to not give in into the temptation of turning to narcissistic self-reflection, which leads to the vanity that I am my own God. At the same time, chairpersonship protects us against the paralyzing powerlessness many people feel in the face of the inscrutable economic and medial contexts: “I am not all-powerful, I am not powerless. I am partially powerful” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 359). In any case, the chairperson principle would be misunderstood if interpreted as an invitation to an unrelated self-realization.

When people perceive themselves as a chairperson, becoming aware being the chairperson of themselves, it is prudent to ask whether there can be moments of lust, of art, of spiritual and religious experience, in which the chairperson is able to deliberately let go:

If we as human beings are always on call – always responsible – then at some point in time that burden will become overbearing. On the other hand, if we surrender responsibility, then we fail to experience many aspects of human life. Since we cannot completely solve this dilemma, we adopt a paradoxical formulation: Even when you are not deciding something, you bear the responsibility for your non-decisions (Röhling 2017, 93).

I consider chairpersonship as the humanistic call to self-responsibility and self-assertiveness to be a very important learning goal of all higher education, in addition to the interchangeable contents of a specific field of study.

4.5 Respect Is Due All Living Things

According to Reiser (2014, 71), the second so-called “ethical axiom” and the third so-called “political axiom” flank the dialectic between autonomy and interdependence on chairpersonship. From this point of view, it becomes clear that self-responsibility and self-assertiveness do not mean self-realization at all costs. Instead, TCI philosophy aims for interdependence toward others being granted with responsibility and in freedom, i.e., interdependence is embedded in values.

The second, the “ethical” axiom states:

Respect is due all living things and their development. Respect for development is what stands behind value-based decisions. What is humane is valuable, what is inhumane is threatening (Cohn 1975, 120).

The relatively imprecise formulation of the second axiom immediately raises the question of what is human. Ruth C. Cohn notes concrete examples:

Being a human being means, for example, not torturing any living being and killing no more of them than is necessary to sustain further life (in particular that of humans). The notion of ‘killing’ expressly includes the killing of mental and intellectual capabilities (Cohn & Farau 42008, 357).

This unequivocal proclamation of the value of life includes respect for nature. What is human(e) may be recognizable in terms of a respectful, interactive, loving attitude; what is inhuman(e) may be revealed in a marginalizing, disrespectful, “sinful” attitude (Matzdorf & Cohn 1992, 62). The question arises as to how Ruth C. Cohn distinguishes between “good and evil” with respect to the ethical axiom. She writes:

I don’t believe that an absolute good or evil is revealed to any chosen people. But I do believe that an “indispensable” good and evil leads us, the direction of which is not static and inflexibly mandatory but is rather directed toward inner and outer circumstances. From an ethical point of view, we can understand an act and its actors only within their overall context. Ethical values are unalterable, and yet they are dependent on the process. Whoever understands oneself as a perspective-bound person, that is, as a person with a limited capacity for perception, knows that good and evil look differently from different perspectives. I can only describe my truth, never yours. Yet I believe that there would be no differing aspects of the ethos if they were not related to the reality of an unalterable center; even though the interpretations thereof can be misleading (Cohn & Farau 42008, 467). 

Ruth C. Cohn supports the hypothesis of an “innate,” “organic” sense of values, the development of which is a question of survival and which corresponds to the autonomous and yet interdependent character of human beings. Only when this innate sense of values is preserved, elaborated, and developed can the increasing rationalization and fragmentation of the world be halted and (atomic) destruction be avoided. She writes:

I believe it possible that the development of values and meaning takes place not only at the slow pace proper to evolution but also in transformational quantum leaps. Both Judeo-Christian and humanistic ethics teach values of goodness and humanity. When smirking pessimists of every age express their regret that human nature has always been inclined toward the survival of the fittest and that nothing will change this, then I protest by saying: the fact that something has been like this in past history does not mean that it must always remain like that … Animals may well be ancestors of our ethical capacity; they may have a “sense” of ethics … Yet between them and us there is a qualitative difference that offers us freedom and responsibility, music and ethos, leaving us with the task of either building community or destroying ourselves (Cohn & Farau 42008, 469f).

Because of the imprecise and, in part, misleading formulation of the second axiom, which is suspected of increased optimism, changes to the axiom are being discussed within the TCI community. Thus, Zitterbarth (2001, 104) proposed modifying the second axiom. Most of the certified TCI trainers at their conference in 2001 agreed on the following wording: “Respect is due to all living things in their growth and decay. This respect qualifies all evaluative decisions” (Vogel 2017, 230).

Röhling (2017) voices suspicion that violence and aggression could be supplanted in connection with the ethical orientation of the TCI approach. He suspects a false “ideal of freedom of aggression” in humanistic pedagogical concepts. However, the ethical axiom and the postulates stress the conscious recognition of violence and aggression in us, the goal not being to displace them, but to become aware of them and by choice take another course of action. In the context of the ethical axiom, Vogel (2017, 83) also refers to recent brain research presented by Bauer in particular (2009, 2011) whose findings indicate that, from the outset, people did not tend toward rivalry and competition, but toward cooperation, sympathy, and community. However, Vogel (2017, 59) also stresses that, in concrete decisions, the conscience (Wertesinn) does not react automatically: “[…] we are responsible not only to our conscience, but also for our conscience, which may have to be (re)adjusted and (re)built over time.” Thus, the Wertesinn of Ruth C. Cohn also requires constant development. She stresses “that the Wertesinn, like all other abilities of the person, needs phased exercise and promotion to be able to develop and unfold” (Matzdorf & Cohn 1992, 62).

The second axiom is fraught with possible misunderstandings if it is (mis)used to support a blind course of growth, like we can find it in the neoliberal economy, which also influences higher education. Masschelein and Simons (2012, 13-40) criticize the European educational system with its tendency to capitalize all social relationships for the goal of producing an “ideal figure of the independent, enterprising student.” This is not only a critique of the European educational system but applies generally to tendencies emerging mainly from the northern hemisphere. The authors are afraid that Kant’s common imperative will be invoked as demanding service to one’s own mind without instructions for caring for one another. This attitude leads to education promoting global immunity instead of global responsibility. They therefore rephrase Kant’s imperative as follows: “Enterprising behavior represents the way out of self-imposed unproductiveness. Unproductiveness is the incapacity to live up to one’s own resources without being guided by others. This unproductiveness is self-imposed if its cause lies not in a lack of resources, but in a lack of determination and courage to enable one’s resources without the guidance of others! ‘Have the courage to partake of your own resources.’” (Masschelein & Simons ibid., 84f). 

The importance of the ethical axiom for higher education lies not in repeating Ruth C. Cohn’s wording, but rather in its basic intention to respect the ethical aspects of human life and welfare. Without respect for ethical aspects, the chairperson postulate can revert to inhumanity. To prevent this from happening in all fields, but especially in education, was one of the Ruth C. Cohn’ most important goals. 

4.6 The Pragmatic-Political Axiom: Free Will Within Limitations

In addition to the ethical axiom, yet another axiom pertains to the co-evolution of human beings between autonomy and interdependence on self-responsibility and self-assertiveness. It is the third, the so-called pragmatic-political axiom. This axiom is as follows: 

Free will occurs within certain internal and external limitations, though these limitations may be extended. We judge freedom as given when we are healthy, intelligent, materially secure, and mentally mature; better than being sick, hampered, or poor and suffering from violence or a lack of maturity. Being aware of our universal interdependence is the basis of all humane responsibility (Cohn 2009, 120).

According to this axiom, we have the freedom to decide and to design our life independently. At the same time, the pragmatic-political axiom is realistic about the dream of unconditional freedom. The paradox of having not unconditional freedom but freedom conditioned by certain restrictions shapes the communicative reality of human existence. Both internal and external boundaries are at work in any situation. And yet such limits can be expanded. In this way, the historicity of human existence and human action once again becomes clearer. Humans are, therefore, responsible, precisely because they know about the universal conditions of freedom. The TCI expert v. Kanitz sees the third axiom as a political and pragmatic answer to the Holocaust in the works of Ruth C. Cohn: “Both the cry ‘Never again’ and the prevention of such human-made catastrophes of all types are best effected by ensuring the power of value-driven consciousness, the ability of each and every individual to act and to assume responsibility” (v. Kanitz 2017, 84f.). Ruth C. Cohn’s friend, A. Farau, was convinced that a certain brand of existentialism supports the ongoing “Hitlerization.” Ruth C. Cohn saw the insights of existential philosophers more positively. “The courageous commitment to an uncertain existence could free up reserves and enable one to live life squarely grounded in one’s environment and together with other human beings” (v. Kanitz 2017, 85). Being grounded in human values and understanding social processes works against the kind of nihilism that leads to loneliness and alienation from others.

Being a human being does not mean just being thrown senselessly into the world; it means finding a meaning in life by realization of the individual self that is part of the community of all human beings […]. Humans can discover things, decide for themselves, consciously change the way the world is. This means both passion and burden, and leads to the important question: “How can I/we change things? What are my/our standards for deciding?” And that is what we call values (Farau & Cohn 1984, 444; transl. in von Kanitz 2017, 85f).

The question of whether a direct or indirect commitment to political action is to be derived from the pragmatic-political axiom has been controversially discussed in the TCI scene. Many authors (cf. Hoppe 1993, 1994; Johach 1994; Krämer 2001; Klemmer 52007) see the political component of TCI as underdeveloped or no longer cherished in accordance with Ruth C. Cohn’s legacy. They demand from TCI a higher level of social and political awareness, a demand that is often associated with criticism of Globe oblivion. The controversy surrounding the social criticism and political demands of TCI also relates to the question of where political action begins. Is the strengthening of an individual’s chairpersonship already political – or does TCI-compliant communication mean taking a stance on social policy discourse and actively working to change inhumane structures?

According to Reiser (cf. 2014) there is a “basic connection” between the first axiom of TCI and the so-called chairperson postulate. The second (ethical) and the third (political) axiom and the so-called disturbance postulate “flank” this connection. Consequently, one of the central intentions of TCI in support of chairpersonship is flanked by basic human insights: The axioms possess a narrow connection to the chairperson postulate.

In light of the didactic intention of this book, I present the second postulate, the so-called disturbances postulate only at the end of this article because it is concerned about what can happen and what we can do if theme-centered interactional processes do not work as we want them to work. 

5. Dealing with Living-learning Processes

The basic principles of TCI may be applied in many different areas. Here they are described in the context of learning and teaching.

5.1 The Triangle in the Sphere

The best-known logo of TCI is the well-known triangle in the sphere or – because it is easier to graphically represent – the equilateral triangle surrounded by a circle touching it at all three corners.[6] 

Fig. 1  The TCI-symbol “triangle in a sphere”

The equilateral triangle symbolizes the TCI factors I-We-It at the respective corners. The sphere represents the Globe affecting each of the other factors (see section 2.4) and is not a static sign of a controlled order between the factors. Rather, it symbolizes the living, dynamic balance of the system. The TCI factors are continually being renewed in an ever-developing interplay, depending on where the respective learning group is currently moving (Belz 1988, 9-33). While the group is strongly involved in the It, attention is still drawn to the other factors, to the individual, the group/class, or the context (Globe) in which learning takes place. It is always important to consider all TCI factors and their dynamic balance in order achieve situational-appropriate planning of the learning processes. However, they also help to avoid a one-sided emphasis of the subject, the individual or the context in the course of learning processes and their evaluation.

In practice, realizing the very simple-sounding TCI working instrument requires a lot of attention to the participants in the learning process, to the dynamic evolving between them, to the existential meaning of the issue and to the ongoing attention for the Globe. All four factors are equivalent, so that both the material load of the learning process as well as the slippery slope into “soul striptease,” unproductive group dynamic or contextual issues must be avoided again and again. The art of living learning must be practiced; it needs continual reflection, if possible, with a supervisor.

The axioms and the postulates point out that individuality and communality share equal value in TCI; they are inseparably joined. Human beings do not live in isolation but are bound in an ongoing tradition of knowledge and wisdom – but also of inhumanity, cruelty, and indifference. They are called to make decisions and take responsibility in communicative interaction. In learning processes, not only here-and-now experiences are relevant, but also historicity, reaching both back into the past and oriented toward the future to preserve the sustainability of humanity and creation - as a whole. Human beings are co-responsible for the humanity or inhumanity of whatever topics and intentions are communicated. The respective concrete Globe is thus involved in all interactive processes (at least subconsciously) since no human being communicates in a social void. This context may be found in the German word “Bildung,” which links both personal and cultural maturation. Some researchers on higher education see a lack of “Bildung” especially in this field (cf. Miller & Ostertag 2017). The so-called Bologna Reform,[7] with its orientation on standards and competences that can be evaluated on a quantitative level, in fact sometimes hinders learning processes. The concentration on learning processes as “generative themes,” which connects the educational theory of Freire and Ruth C. Cohn, can provide new alternatives (cf. Ostertag 2017; Hagleitner 1996). Generative themes lie nearer to people and their real problems. TCI encourages us to search for such uniting themes and to formulate them in adequate and attractive ways. Creating themes should become a task and competence inherent to higher education.

The learning task receives its specific commitment not only through subjectification during living-learning processes. At school and university, communication often revolves around the “I” of individual students, the “We” of a group or class, or the “Globe” (context) in which they are currently active. But the “I,” the “We,” and the “Globe” can also become the subject of a learning process - in their own right. Because of the subjective, inter-subjective and contextual condition of all teaching and learning, it is useful to distinguish between the subject matter or the content being taught or learned, and the theme to which it is specific or which initiates learning. They are truly identical only if, for example, the topic of a book or an essay is understood as the content of a seminar or a school lesson.

In TCI, it has become customary to differentiate between the learning objective, the content or the concern of the learning processes and the respective theme. In the original texts by Ruth C. Cohn, the “It” as a learning subject, content or concern and the specific theme formulation are not completely distinguished, the It-factor being for all intents and purposes equated with the theme. Later though, TCI teachers differentiated more between It and theme. Figuratively speaking, the theme remained no longer settled beside the It, but forms the center of the triangle within the sphere (cf. Langmaack 22001). It equally refers to “I,” “We,” “It” and “Globe.”

For Padberg (2010, 73-84) TCI is at once a general didactic approach and more than that. He unites Klafki’s “critical-constructive didactic” (Klafki 2006, 13-34) with Reich’s systemic-constructivistic pedagogy (1997) and TCI. In the so-called “didactic concept of Innsbruck” (Scharer 2000, 55-68; 2013b, 58-63), we use TCI not only for planning and evaluating learning processes, but also for the kind of didactic analysis Klafki promoted. Here, we work with a triangle in a sphere in which determination of the concern lies at the center.

When explaining the content of a learning project, I always think of a situation of a Czech colleague. She tried to understand what I meant by the term “concern” because she could not find an adequate word in her language. I provided some examples to explain it. Spontaneously, she said: Oh, now I did understand. “Concern” is what lies close to the heart of both you as a leader and the learning group - as a whole. So, when searching for the “concern,” which is always connected with specific intentions, it can be helpful to bring it to the center of the triangle in the sphere to discover the different aspects emanating out from the TCI perspectives. It is used like the term “perspective schema” Klafki employed to try to determine the central perspectives of learning. If the “concern” and the intentions are clear, someone can try to formulate a theme in the initial session of the process. 

5.2 The Theme as the Focus of a Learning Process

In TCI, the theme is the focus of a living-learning process. It is also a specific tool for compassionate leadership in a given group. Understanding a deliberately formulated and personally introduced TCI theme differs from the everyday usage of the topic concept, which usually refers only to contents or tasks without applying to the linguistic form a special learning-stimulating and communication-controlling meaning. Even in conventional didactic contexts, the topic is often equated with a summary of the matter or the content of a learning process. The TCI theme, however, is concerned with the particular focus of learning, which is not exhausted in the content-related exchange between students and lecturers.

The development of awareness for the theme is based on the practice Ruth C. Cohn introduced herself (Cohn 1970a, 251-259). In her seminars with very different groups, she invited people to recount what made them happy, what depressed them, with whom they did not work well, etc. From the act of attentively listening to the personal stories of people, the concrete theme – which had to be mapped out in each case – gained its succinct form: “I spoke to them as fellow seekers, who helped them to find their generative themes” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 334). The term “generative theme” refers to the TCI approach, too, especially their understanding of the subject, found in the liberating educational work of Paulo Freire (cf. Hagleitner 1996; Ostertag 2017). In the archive, I found documents showing the high interest Ruth C. Cohn had in Freire’s “Pedagogy of Liberation” (1975). 

Many different themes are present in any meaningful communication between people. This is also the case in a living-learning process. If communication is not left to meaningless clichés, which kill the learning process, the theme-character of the topics remains. In this sense, Funke (cf. 1984) speaks of a “thematic-symbolic orientation” as crucial for the meaning among human beings. He sees TCI as a model of thematic-symbolic orientation which transforms experienced, often clichéd, everyday situations into meaningful social situations. Similarly, Kroeger (cf. 1973) in the first TCI book published in German, spoke of the fact that the process of searching and formulating themes according to TCI can be a process of “open language learning” which also focuses “on the right and strength of defense”[8] (ibid., 214). The attention paid to the theme makes it possible to spontaneously grasp the central and existentially important issue, mostly in metaphors. Also, this act can unmask uninhibited educational talks as such. Attention to the theme and theme sensibility are helpful for understanding and formulating what is going on in living-learning processes. In my view, this is one of the most important tools in didactic training. 

Themes sensu TCI create an association between the concerns of learning and the theme-centered interactional process in a concrete learning group. As proposed, it is important for didactics to first ask about the concerns of the respective learning process, which is a kind of didactic analysis: Where do the needs and concerns of the I, the We, the It and the Globe lie? To this end, it is necessary to gain general insights into (individual) psychology and sociology in order to obtain knowledge on individuals and on the Globe, in dynamics and group structures (cf. Rubner 2016) – and especially to have expert knowledge for determining the elementary contents and structures of the subject. Therefore, formulating an adequate theme for a living-learning process in higher education demands a much higher competence with respect to the subject than that required in traditional “learning by repeating and summarizing” factual knowledge.

In accordance with didactic analysis, also of the TCI factors, determining the matter at hand and formulating an adequate theme become possible to evaluate the process. In the fourth edition of his book (cf. 41989), Kroeger worked out a model of self-supervision which can be useful for such an evaluation. He proposes reflection on the I, We, It and structure. In light of the argument stated above, I would add a report on the Globe and the theme. Such supervision can also be done in a group. In my TCI practice, such an evaluation, strongly oriented toward the theme, is a permanent tool for planning seminar sessions, to which I usually invite some participants. Also, I practice planning with participants who are interested in special learning. The feedback generally is that they have learned the most from the planning processes.

Up to now, we viewed the meaning of planning and evaluation and the specific possibilities present in themes. By formulating themes as the focus of a learning process, we need to ask: How can I “correctly” formulate themes? What are the rules of the game? Ruth Cohn (52007, 322f.) gave some helpful hints. An adequately formulated theme:

• is phrased briefly and clearly to be constantly kept in mind

• is not trite and therefore not boring

• is adapted to the linguistic and cognitive competences of participants

• is formulated so as not to exclude anyone or offend anyone’s feelings

• is not too narrowly (i.e., concretely) formulated so as to leave room for spontaneous insights, ideas and images

• is not too broadly (i.e., abstractly) formulated so as to not be open to “everything” and be focused on nothing

• has an emotionally challenging character (may contain group jargon, lyrical or punlike phrasing, reference to familiar events, and so forth)

• opens and favors new horizons and innovative solutions

• is not phrased one-sidedly, which leaves little room for other possibilities and thus may become manipulative

• does not go against the axiomatic values of human rights and of TCI

• supports the group process by fitting in, both logically and psychologically, with the sequence of themes to be worked through and by maintaining the dynamic balance between the participants’ concerns and concrete needs

• takes into account the ability of group members to express themselves verbally and makes use of nonverbal means of presenting themes (images, pantomime, etc.).

The theme as the focus of a learning process is not just the theme for the participants; it is also the theme for the leader/facilitator of the group. In this sense, one’s personal introduction to the theme is crucial. The use of pictorial material and games, occasionally also texts, may be particularly useful in some situations – not just for groups of children or handicapped persons. Such devices recommend themselves on a case-by-case basis. As a rule, however, the primary instrument of group work remains the well-phrased theme that has been carefully prepared to correspond to the group’s needs and to allow each participant to access it. Schneider-Landolf explains:

The trick lies in finding a clear and precise description that engages the respective individuals with all their own experiences, knowledge, concerns, feelings, attitudes, fantasies, and questions; one that invites them to participate in the ensuing group conversation. That is how a lively process of exchange ensues among the participants: theme-centered interaction (Schneider-Landolf 2017, 147).

Finding, phrasing, and introducing themes requires considerable time, but the effort is well justified by the astonishing effectiveness it will have on the group’s interaction.

5.3 Structuring Learning Processes

The structuring of learning processes found in didactics was not the main concern of Ruth C. Cohn. Once you have carefully found, formulated, and introduced the theme, the structure for how to deal with it follows spontaneously. In the context of the professionalization of TCI as a method of leading groups, however, the question of adequate structures has become increasingly important. Structures understood as working forms, techniques (methods), and media, which are selected and applied from the theme, provide guidance and security in teaching and learning processes (Klein 2017, 154-158).

Putting theme at the middle of the triangle in the sphere also indicates that structuring the living-learning process grows directly out of the theme. In practice, teachers sometimes are so concentrated on finding the right forms of tasks, methods and media that they forget the theme as the focus of the learning process. Formulating a theme sensu TCI means finding ways to work on the theme, besides its meaning. The following figure explains:

Fig. 2  Formulating a theme sensu TCI leads to a fitting structure

The question of situating structures in learning processes in a globalized communication context, which is largely controlled by electronic media, raises problems that strongly challenge learning and teaching (cf. Scharer 2013; Scharer & Geffers 2015). If, for example, a very wide range of personal and intimate topics are communicated in a broad communication, this can affect the balance between autonomy and interdependence, proximity, and distance. The medium in which themes are communicated is associated closely with how trust is enabled (or not). In this context, the TCI triangle designed by Stollberg (1982, 40) can be helpful. It shows the interdependency of the triangle of process-structure-trust in the learning process:

Fig. 3  Interdependency of process – structure – trust by Stollberg (1982, 40)

Stollberg (ibid.) also describes what he calls implicit “shadow triangles”:

Fig. 4  Interdependency of stagnation – chaos – mistrust by Stollberg (1982, 40) 

I have done a lot of supervision of learners and teachers in higher education. From this experience, I know about stagnation in planning and evaluating if everything is concentrated on the structure of a learning process. Mostly it is a lack of clarity about the subject matter and in the theme. Structuring processes based on a theme with a clear concern and clear intentions in mind make planning, facilitating, and evaluating learning processes much easier.

6. Participative Leadership in Living-Learning Groups

In my experience, participatory leadership that corresponds to the TCI approach is one of the greatest challenges for didactics in higher education. Establishing the ideal that students should be involved in the planning and facilitating of learning processes is much easier than actually installing participative leadership as a consequence at the university and college level. It changes the system and the role of all individuals involved.

Today we do not suffer from a hierarchical distribution of role preventing participative leadership. Nowadays – and not just in Europe – institutions of higher education are on their way toward becoming customer-friendly institutions (cf. Claassen 2017). But customers are also consumers and not participants in the sense of TCI. By trying to understand all the needs of students and to make each one of them happy with the bargain, I become like a supermarket attempting to bring products to the people. The products in this context would be the objectives students have. Participatory leadership, however, does not mean merely making objectives so attractive that students would want to consume them or pick them. This does not mean that it is not necessary to understand student’s needs and to make objectives learnable.

Switching to participative leadership in higher education means making it obvious to students that we are all a community of learners, albeit different competences we bring to the learning process. Teachers who are unaware that they too are learners – learning from the experiences and insights of their students – will be incapable of participatory leadership. I am so impressed by the many reports Ruth C. Cohn wrote in the context of her seminars. They are full of learning insights she gained before, during and after seminars which she wrote down carefully. They were (and still are) a major source of her knowledge. In her process of learning more about participation, she wrote some 3,500 letters, some of them more than 10 pages long, in order to get into a participative learning process with different people and researchers from different subject areas which interested her.

Leaders who favor participative leadership are aware of their own learning process as well as that of their participants. They encourage active involvement. “People can often express their creativity and demonstrate abilities and talents that would not become otherwise apparent. Discovering these hidden assets helps to benefit the work of the current team, but also alerts the organization to people within the team who should be provided with opportunities to further develop some skill or ability for further use” (Scharer 2017b) Participative leadership does not mean leading as the head of the learning group, as the directive leading style prefers. It also does not mean leading for a learning group, which is closer to the idea of satisfying customers. Rather, real participative leadership as a style means leading from within and is something that students and teachers rarely encounter in higher education. 

Participative leadership has close connections to the authenticity of leaders and participants. For Ruth C. Cohn, selective authenticity as chairpersons is one of the main fruits of participative leadership. The selective authenticity practiced by the leader encourages participants to stand on their own and to selectively communicate their authenticity. This means that everything I communicate, both verbally and nonverbally, is authentic. Acting as a conscious chairperson, I decide what and how I communicate in the here-and-now. The practice of selective authenticity supports participants in mastering their own chairpersonship. Participative leadership also deals with disturbances and passionate involvements (see next section). So, participatory leaders are not far-off and unreachable teachers, big bosses, or famous masters; they are also not gurus, something Ruth C. Cohn strictly rejected for herself (cf. Cohn, 1992). Ruth C. Cohn never clearly defined participative leadership. For her […] group leaders are primarily participants, that is, human beings with their own specific interests, preferences, thoughts, and feelings. Only secondarily are they group leaders with a special function in the group. And this function is mainly concerned with maintaining a dynamic balance between the I, the We, the It and their connections to the Globe” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 368).

Hintner, Middelkoop and Wolf-Hollander (2017, 171) recently added the aspect of “balance between diagnostic distance and personal involvement.” They propose the following definition for participative leadership:

PL calls on leaders to be cognizant of their own conscious and unconscious actions and reactions by responding to the other participants and the entire process. They do this by selectively and authentically establishing a balance between diagnostic distance and personal involvement (Hintner, Middelkoop & Wolf-Hollander 2017, 171). 

Participative leadership is one of the greatest challenges in higher education. It is not a tool someone can use like a magic wand to simply produce living learning. Rather, it presupposes a careful process of analysis and planning to determine what can happen in the learning group and how the leader is accepted as a person and not just as a leader. Questions of authority come into play. Selective authenticity helps to balance participation and provide the distance necessary to this role.

7. When It Doesn’t Work as It Should: Disturbances and Passionate Involvements in Living-Learning Processes

Especially when practicing didactics in higher education, the pressure rises to ensure that learning processes actually work. If they do not work in the ideal situations of classes at universities, polytechnics, and colleges, how should they be expected to work in the common practices of schools or elsewhere? Universities and colleges are generally fault-tolerant systems, so that the “disturbance postulate” of TCI might sound like a provocation. What does it mean?

For Ruth C. Cohn, the term disturbance represented “one of the most important steps on the path from psychoanalysis to TCI” (Ockel & Cohn 1992, 185). It is formulated as the second TCI postulate:

… Note the hindrances along the way, both your own and those of others. Disturbances take precedence; failing to solve them prevents or delays growth (Cohn 1975, 121).

Or the more common formulation:

… Disturbances and passionate involvements take precedence (Cohn, 1975, 122).

For Ruth C. Cohn “disturbances do not ask for permission; they are simply there: pain, joy, fear, distraction” (Cohn, 1975, 122). She also speaks of “antipathies,” “perturbation,” “passionate feelings” and “involvements” (Cohn & Farau 42008, 359).

The disturbance postulate may sound paradoxical: How can disturbances and passionate involvements – highly emotional reactions with a somewhat unbalancing effect on people – in fact provide learning opportunities? Are they not in fact representing obstacles to working on a theme? For the content-oriented academic, calling attention to disturbances and passionate involvements may seem like an affront. TCI, however, encourages you to reconsider.

Yet one may ask: Doesn’t the emotionality of resistance and passionate involvement represent a force that is too little appreciated in traditional learning, teaching, and scholarship? When a specific theme, thought or feeling captivates me so much that I only outwardly participate in a learning process, then my interest is in fact occupied by the so-called disturbance. The “disturbing” concern becomes the real theme for me, what I am mainly concerned with. It comes to stand in competition with the ongoing process or topic. If this collision between themes is allowed to continue without being directly addressed, as is often the case in schools and universities, it leads to disinterest and indifference. If, on the other hand, there is an atmosphere in which disturbances and involvements can be “lived out,” there is the chance for a constructive solution. Here, the teacher too can learn something new, giving the topic more depth. Taking chances of inviting unexpected angles into the theme benefits all.

Sometimes it suffices simply to call attention to the existence of a disturbance, whereupon the participants can then return to the official theme. In other situations, it is necessary to decide collectively between the official theme and the latent themes of individual group members. Paralyzed communication is often rooted in the lack of clear perception of competing themes, which, because of the unconscious rule of the game, are prevented from finding expression. Laying them out on the table generally results in a heated discussion not without conflict. Whether and how decisions are made by the group about competing themes depends on the ability of the teacher/leader to deal with conflict, an ability that is intuitively perceived by the participants/students and must withstand the winds of group dynamics.

In such conflict situations, it is often helpful to recall the “official” theme as the original focal point of communication. The more precisely the official theme and the competing themes are formulated, the easier it becomes to identify resistance and alternative themes. If the competing themes prove so intense that continued working on the official theme becomes impossible, then it is necessary to re-plan the process. Perhaps also a synthesis becomes evident. Participants should be invited to take responsibility for their own and the common learning process. This means involving them in doing the re-planning. Rigid adherence to a plan set forth by curricular didactics is not what ensures the communicative quality of a learning process. Rather, clear planning combined with a flexible application is decisive. This means that the plan can be altered with the permission of the learning group if need be. 

If disturbances and passionate involvements remain hidden or are suppressed and permanently left unspoken, there arises “the impersonal 'trouble-free' classrooms, lecture halls, factory rooms, conference rooms” (Cohn & Farau 2008, 359). They are

... then filled with apathetic and submissive or with desperate and rebellious people whose frustration leads to the destruction of themselves or their institution. The postulate that disturbances and passionate feelings take precedence means that we recognize the reality of man; and this contains the fact that our living, emotionally moving bodies and souls are the bearers of our thoughts and actions. When these carriers falter, our actions and thoughts are as uncertain as their foundations (Cohn 162009, 122).

It is precisely by recognizing the disturbance reality that we can create the possibility of changing this state and of bringing life and liveliness to higher education and learning. In TCI, the political and societal significance of the postulate of disturbance was revealed early on:

We believe that many of us fall victim to a disturbance in which we forget about what is humanly possible because we let ourselves be crippled by what is humanly impossible. Maybe this is our most important generative theme: “What do I do as an individual or as small group when confronted with the inscrutable factors that seem necessary for solving sociopolitical problems?” The disturbance says, “It is impossible, it is too much. We cannot find a solution for all the destructive, senseless, unjust things that are happening. 

It is possible that this very way of phrasing the question causes such disturbances? … We believe that the disturbance (“it is too much, too complicated, too depressing to do something political”) may be countered with a policy of small steps and with the belief in human values (Ockel & Cohn 1992, 202). 

As an example of the efficacy of the disturbance postulate, Ruth C. Cohn reports on a workshop she conducted the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It initially gave room to the tragedy at hand, in which the participants were silently aware of the feelings and thoughts that moved them following the assassination. Then she formulated a theme that was consciously connected to the “external” disorder caused by the political events. From personal experience I can report something similar: I attended an unforgettable TCI seminar that took place during the Chernobyl disaster. Upon receiving the first news in the early days, the planned thematic orientation of the workshop changed radically. The experience of a young father whose children might have played in the sandbox the day before, because the child’s mother had not received yet the news of the accident, will forever remain with me. Since then I have become more aware of the resource of disturbances and involvements for “generative” themes. This example shows how aspects of the Globe do not remain outside of a learning situation: Ever so often, “external” disturbances correspond to “internal” ones. 

8. Summary

In this introductory chapter, I introduced the concept of TCI as discussed by Ruth C. Cohn and myself as author. Her explanations of certain aspects of the approach are supported by my own experiences in facilitating groups and classes in different fields of education, but especially in the context of higher education. Cross-cultural and trans-religious learning processes according to TCI have proved to be special challenges for me. I then correlated subjective experiences like those of Ruth C. Cohn with the numerous descriptions of TCI and its further developments available in the literature. Behind all of this stands my own work on the rich heritage of Ruth C. Cohn, which provides a deep connection between her “story” and the system of TCI so dear to my heart. 

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[1] The University of Innsbruck, Austria, where I have been working as a full professor of didactics and religious education since 1996, is a full university with about 30,000 students.

[2] In that time, I was a professor at the Catholic University of Linz, Austria.

[3] “The psychoanalytic term of transference denotes the expression of wishes and feelings that were originally connected with important persons in the individual’s past (primarily one’s parents) and which are then relived in the relationship to individuals in the present (i.e., group leaders, therapists, etc.). In psychoanalysis, transference is considered an important aid in overcoming repressed conflicts. However, within TCI the emphasis lies on examining and correcting these distortions in perception (transference) based on its realistic content. Resolving difficulties that lie in the life history of the individual is reserved for psychoanalytic methods.” (Kuebel & Volker-Schuetz 2016, 293). Counter transference means that transference is also reciprocal in therapeutic processes.

[4] See http://www.ruth-cohn-institute.org/tl_files/content/zentraleinhalte/dokumente/Forschung/Literaturliste_RCI-international_04-17.pdf

[5] With “current form of representation” Reiser means the description of TCI specifics (see sections 4.2-4.4). Various TCI experts work in the field of TCI and didactics, and some of them may be found as coauthors in the chapter written by Reiser and associates in this book.

[6] Reiser (cf. 2014) makes the case for using a tetrahedron because it allows the systemic correlation of all TCI aspects and factors to become more visible.

[7] The Bologna Reform contains a series of agreements between European countries to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher-education qualifications.

[8] In this case, it is an inner defense which crops up if terms or formulations are used that are usually undercover.