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THE LANGUAGE OF MENTAL HEALTH
On the Self:
Discourses of Mental
Health and Education
Julie Allan · Valerie Harwood
The Language of Mental Health
Series Editors
Michelle O’Reilly, The Greenwood Institute, University of
Leicester, Leicester, UK
Jessica Nina Lester, School of Education, Indiana
University, Bloomington, IN, USA
This series brings together rich theoretical and empirical discussion at
the intersection of mental health and discourse/conversation analysis.
Situated broadly within a social constructionist perspective, the books
included within this series will offer theoretical and empirical examples
highlighting the discursive practices that surround mental health and
make ‘real’ mental health constructs. Drawing upon a variety of discourse
and conversation analysis perspectives, as well as data sources, the books
will allow scholars and practitioners alike to better understand the role
of language in the making of mental health.
We are very grateful to our expert editorial board who continue to
provide support for the book series. We are especially appreciative of the
feedback that they have provided on earlier drafts of this book. Their
supportive comments and ideas to improve the book have been very
helpful in our development of the text. They continue to provide support
as we continue to edit the book series ‘the language of mental health’. We
acknowledge them here in alphabetical order by surname.
Tim Auburn, Plymouth University, UK
Galina Bolden, Rutgers University, USA
Susan Danby, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Debra Friedman, Indiana University, USA
Ian Hutchby, University of Leicester, UK
Doug Maynard, University of Wisconsin, USA
Emily A. Nusbaum, University of San Francisco, USA
Julie Allan · Valerie Harwood
On the Self:
Discourses of Mental
Health
and Education
Julie Allan Valerie Harwood
School of Education Sydney School of Education
University of Birmingham and Social Work
Birmingham, UK The University of Sydney
Camperdown, Sydney, NSW, Australia
The Language of Mental Health

ISBN 978-3-031-10995-9 ISBN 978-3-031-10996-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10996-6
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Acknowledgements
Valerie Harwood, Anna Hickey-Moody, Sarah O’Shea & Sam

McMahon, (2017). The Politics of Widening Participation and University
Access for Young People: Making educational futures.
The right of Valerie Harwood, Anna Hickey-Moody, Sam McMahon
and Sarah O’Shea to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copy-
right, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this
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Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear.
v
Contents
1 Introduction: The Psy-Self 1
Part I Tell Me My Self

2 Making Strange the History of Psychological
Discourses of the Self in Education 23
3 Schooling the (Achieving) Self 55
4 Mental Disorder in School and the Damaged Self 85
5 Happiness and Wellbeing: For the Love of the Self 115
Part II Counter-Narratives of the Self

6 The Pleasure(s) of the Self 151
7 The Capable Self 173
8 Re-Presenting the Self 205
9 Politicising the Self 235
vii
viii Contents
10 A Manifesto for Selfwork 265
References 283
Index 319
About the Authors
Julie Allan and Valerie Harwood are the authors of Psychopathology at

School: Theorising Mental Disorder in Education (2014, Routledge) and
of Medicus Interruptus in the Behaviour of Disadvantaged Children in
Scotland, in the British Journal of Sociology of Education (http://dx.doi.
org/10.1080/01425692.2013.776933). They also co-edited, together
with Clara Jørgensen, The Routledge World Yearbook in Education:
Schooling, governance and inequalities (2020, Routledge).
Julie Allan is a Professor of Equity and Inclusion at the University of

Birmingham, UK, where she was formerly Head of the School of Educa-
tion. Julie’s research focuses on inclusion, disability studies and children’s
rights and encompasses both empirical and theoretical work. She has
been an expert adviser on policy, practice and research to governments,
NGOs and Council of Europe.
Valerie Harwood is a Professor of Sociology and Anthropology of

Education, Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University
of Sydney. Valerie’s research is centred on a social and cultural analysis of
ix
x About the Authors
participation in educational futures. This work involves learning about

collaborative approaches and in-depth fieldwork on educational justice
with young people, families and communities.
List of Figures
Fig. 6.1 Montage of images of Marc-André Leclerc

by Marc-André Leclerc (Leclerc, 2015) 166
Fig. 8.1 Riva Lehrer, Circle Stories: Tekki Lomnicki, 1999 226
Fig. 8.2 Riva Lehrer, Circle Stories: Eli Clare, 1999 227
xi
List of Tables
Table 2.1 “Two Traditions” of psychological self in education

adapted from Martin and McLellan (2013)
and Sugarman (2015) 33
Table 5.1 Highest happiness ranking 2017–2019 117
Table 5.2 Lowest happiness rankings 2017–2019 117
Table 5.3 Highest happiness rankings in 2018–2020
and comparisons with 2017–2019 118
Table 5.4 Lowest happiness rankings in 2018–2020
and comparisons with 2017–2019 119
Table 5.5 Comparison of child wellbeing outcomes 121
Table 5.6 The intensification of the self 139
xiii
1
Introduction: The Psy-Self
Self esteem is themainspring that slates every child for success or failure
as a human being. (Briggs, 2001, p. 3)
Emerging adults are aware of and somewhat distressed by messaging that

casts their age-group as the most narcissistic and entitled age-group ever.
(Grubbs, 2019)
The exhausted is the exhaustive, the dried up, the extenuated and the
dissipated. (Deleuze & Uhlman, 1995, p. 12)
There has been increasing attention, in recent years, to the self in educa-
tion, through systemic educational interventions directed at self-esteem,
self-concept, self-efficacy and self-regulation. These interventions and
the accompanying “intense professional interest and scrutiny” (Zeidner
et al., 2000, p. 749), taking place through the “psy”-disciplines (Foucault,
1965, 1986, 1988; Rose, 1996)—psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy
and psychoanalysis—enable individuals increasingly to “take stock of
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
J. Allan and V. Harwood, On the Self: Discourses of Mental Health and Education,
The Language of Mental Health,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10996-6_1
2 J. Allan and V. Harwood
themselves and attempt to manage themselves according to the psy-

discourse” (Martin & McLellan, 2013, p. 9). They provide a concreteness
and quasi-scientific basis to aspects of the individual hitherto unexposed
(Martin & McLellan, 2013), with the aim of making students more
expressive, strategic and entrepreneurial, but it has also made them more
self-interested, in a manner adhering to such self prescriptions as well
as creating a series of “wounded attachments” (Brown, 1993, p. 390).
The psy-disciplines have also played an important role as an “intellectual
technology” (Rose, 1996, p. 10) that helps in the process of “making
up” (Hacking, 2007, p. 285) the persons that we know ourselves as and,
consequently, have transformed our understanding of personhood.
We have, however, become “exhausted” (Deleuze & Uhlman,
1995, p.12) by and with the constant attention upon ourselves, while
remaining “fragile” and “hooked on self-esteem” (Furedi, 2004, p. 143).
There are growing concerns about the negative impact on society of a
rise in self-orientation among students (Martin & McLellan, 2013) with
some observers tying this to student failure and environmental decay
(Brubach, 2009; Bush, 2009; Twenge, 2006). Rose (2018) highlights the
pathological consequence of the extensive attention to self in the form
of one in ten children holding a psychiatric diagnosis of mental disorder,
a figure that is greater when those diagnosed with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder are included. Monbiot (2016) also attributes
the “catastrophic figures for children’s mental health” to “competitive
self-interest and extreme individualism”. However, he also placed the
blame for this on neoliberalism, suggesting that human beings who are
hard-wired for sociability are being “peeled apart”.
The Distressed Self

The high levels of distress among children (Rose, 2018) have been noted
and responded to with interventions such as mindfulness, happiness
and wellbeing lessons in schools (Guardian, 2017; happyconfidentkids.
org.uk). As Low (2021) points out, there are different kinds of mind-
fulness, some of them influenced by Buddhism, but the mindfulness
that tends to be introduced into schools is psychologically oriented.
A study by Lee et al. (2018) offered a scientific explanation for stress

among children, suggesting that levels of cortisol, the so-called stress
hormone, rose when students received a setback such as a poor grade.
Those students with a growth mindset, who believed that intelligence
could be developed, experienced a lowering of cortisol after a few days.
Those with fixed mindsets, who considered intelligence to be fixed, were
left with higher cortisol levels for longer. Official bodies such as Ofqual
(The Ofqual blog), the NHS(a) (undated) and the British Psycholog-
ical Society (Bulman, 2018) have issued guidance on minimising stress
related to examination and testing, while the NHS offers the following
guidance on stress to students in higher education:
University can be a stressful experience, as well as being fun and exciting.

You may feel stressed about starting university, exams, coursework dead-
lines, living with people you do not get on with, or thinking about the
future. Stress is a natural feeling, designed to help you cope in challenging
situations. In small amounts it can be good, because it pushes you to work
hard and do your best, such as during exams. But if you’re feeling very
stressed or feel you cannot manage stress, it can lead to mental health
problems such as depression and anxiety. It can also affect your academic
performance. (NHS(b), undated)
The eloquence of children and young people about their distress and low
self-esteem is often striking. They appear familiar, and at ease with, the
discourse of the damaged self and speak fluently about the feelings of
“worthlessness” and “self-harming” behaviours together with high levels
of “stress,” “anxiety” and “poor mental health”. The following young man
describes his transition from a bad to a very good place almost entirely
in terms of the self:
My mum was so worried about me, she said she’s never seen me at such
a low point because I was depressed and my anxiety was so bad I couldn’t
leave my room … Part of the programme was online and it made me feel
anxious just thinking about taking part, but when I was in the store on
placement it gave me a new lease of life. Interacting with the customers
has really boosted my confidence at the end of the programme. (Princes
Trust, 2021)
The naming of stress by the very young, with children as young as 9

and 10 referring to themselves as “stressed out” (Furedi, 2004, p. 1),
the identification with stress and the projection of stressed selves onto
social media seems alarming, yet it is endemic and is an everyday part of
young people’s discourse. Social media has played a significant role in this
with mixed consequences. On the one hand, the high profile campaigns
such as Heads Together, with Royal patronage (headstogether.org.uk) and
Mind , with Stephen Fry as its ambassador, has reduced the stigma asso-
ciated with mental illness and encouraged people to talk about their own
struggles with mental health. On the other hand, social media is awash
with celebrities “sharing” their selves and their lives and with influencers
who turn the attention on themselves into a marketing opportunity.
Either way, children and young people are left with the expectation that
they should be putting themselves out in the world to be scrutinised and
judged.
In and Out of Love with the Self

The excessive attention to self has led to high levels of what could be
termed narcissism, which in turn appear to have precipitated height-
ened dissatisfaction. We note here that we are not using this term in
the manner with which it has been appropriated in psychiatric discourse,
such as in relation to “personality disorders”. The rapid ascent of narcis-
sism in society has been observed and documented since the seventies
by Tom Wolfe’s (1976) New York Times piece, The ‘Me’ Decade and the
New Third Awakening and Christopher Lasch’s (1979) Culture of Narcis-
sism. Wolfe regarded this new emergence as faintly positive and hinted
at vitality, whereas Lasch read it as more defiant and anti-social. The
“narcissism epidemic”, diagnosed by Twenge and Campbell (2013, p.
iv) has four elements. The first is developmental and includes permis-
sive parenting and self-esteem focussed education, ensuring children
are born as “snowflakes,” “princesses” and “superheroes” and grow with
increasing (over)confidence and self-regard. A second strand is the media
culture which promotes shallow celebrity, together with the third, the
internet, which serves as a conduit for narcissism. Easy credit is the final
strand, enabling narcissistic dreams to come true. Although easy credit

has diminished in recent years, the three remaining strands continue to
feed and promote a “corrosive narcissism that threatens to infect us all”
(Twenge & Campbell, 2013, p. 9) and which is extremely negative and
destructive. Even the take up of the label of narcissism, for example, with
the inclusion of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the fourth edition of
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM -4-TR,
APA, 2000) is itself, Twenge and Campbell (2013) suggest, attention
seeking. It is interesting to note that, during the consultations for
proposed revisions to personality disorders in the current edition, DSM-
5 (APA, 2013) there was a proposal to “eliminate NPD as a specific
diagnosis”; however, “NPD had by far the most supporters” (Skodol
et al., 2014, p. 424) and was not removed.
Narcisissm has become normalised through the repetition of norms
which lead to the emergence of “boundary, fixity and surface” (Butler,
1993, p. 9). More recently, Williams (2016) has questioned whether
we are living through a narcissism epidemic and asks how worried we
should be about our self-obsession as a nation. Most concerning is the
pride that confirmed narcissists appear to take in their “condition” and
its manifestation in a lack of care for others. The most public personas
branded as narcissistic include Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins and golfer
Tiger Woods, but while the diagnostically defined Narcissistic Personality
Disorder (NPD) remains relatively uncommon (MacDonald, 2014),
there does seem to be an increase in the number of people who are
described as having “narcissistic tendencies”. For instance, Twenge and
Campbell (2013) claim one in ten people under the age of 25 and one
in 16 in the general population showed some symptoms of NPD. Bush
(2009, p. 6), describing the growth in self-regard as a “scourge that has
affected us all”, urged that we “recognize the epidemic and its negative
consequences and take corrective action”.
Children are also being described as being narcissistic. For instance,
a study by Brummelman et al. (2015) reports narcissism in children is
a demonstrated consequence of excessive parental praise. This is itself
generated through parental overvaluation, believing their child to be
better than others and communicating this to them. Brummelham and
colleagues (2015) found overvalued and overpraised children exhibited
what they term “narcissistic traits” up to six months later. Parents who
were heaping extra praise on their children were seeking to raise their
self-esteem but were merely providing “a kind of lackadaisical positive
assertion” (Williams, 2016). Brummelham et al.’s results lead them to
claim that that self-esteem is most effectively raised through parental
warmth, affection and appreciation and we note here what could be
called the praise dilemma: what is too much parental praise? Getting
the balance right is necessary due to the spectre of narcissism, which it
appears can be summoned by excessive parental praise.
In schools, there has been widespread concern that a strong emphasis
on self-esteem was leading to grade inflation, student misconduct and
student failure and creating a “runaway self-interest and entitlement”
(Martin & McLellan, 2013, p. 17) among young people. Stout (2000,
p. 14) has referred to the “feel good curriculum” that is “dumbing
down” public education in America. More generally, critical attention
has focussed on the decades of programmatic interventions directed at
the self—self-esteem, self-concept, self-efficacy and self-regulation—and
Salomon (1995, p. 106) was among those arguing that the focus needed
to change “from the study of isolated and decontextualized individuals,
processes, states of mind, or interventions to their study within wider
psychological, disciplinary, social, and cultural contexts”.
To See Ourselves as the “Psy-Experts” See Us

The level of precision in the documentation of the individual self, vali-
dated by the expertise of the psy-disciplines, particularly psychology
(Danziger, 1988), makes the inscription of difference and the recogni-
tion of deviance more possible (Martin & McLellan, 2013, Rose, 1990;
1996). It has also given the psy-experts—“engineers of the human soul”
(Rose, 1996, p. 81)—an elevated and privileged position in society.
Psychology has particular status and authority as a discipline, according
to Rose (1996), not just on a scientific and technical basis but because
of a knowledge of subjectivity that is ethical. This ethical dimension
has enabled psychology to infuse the human-oriented professions that
operate within prisons, hospitals and businesses as well as educational
institutions, offering the “promise of personhood” (Rose, 1996, p. 88).

This, in turn, has made it possible for these organisations and establish-
ments to develop their own set of knowledges relating to the practical,
technical organisation of space, time, bodies and gazes (Gordon, 1987)
and to assume all individuals to be “calculable” (Rose, 1996, p. 89)
and discernible through diagnostic practices, such as the psychological
test. The concomitant increase in research focussing on the self, while
inevitable as soon as psychologists began basing their explanations for
almost every aspect of human behaviour on the self (Danziger, 1997),
has been somewhat reductive:
In effect, the entire exercise transforms an important set of metaphys-

ical and ontological issues concerning the nature of human existence and
agency to a grossly simplified exercise in methodology. For many scien-
tific and practical purposes, the self has become a latent construct inferred
from self-ratings on a particular instrument at a specific time and place.
(Martin & McLellan, 2013, p. 12)
Rose (1996) and others (Foucault, 1991; Hacking, 2007; Rose &
Miller, 1992) have linked the influence of the psy-disciplines on the
self to enhanced technologies of government, whereby strategies and
programmes are aimed at ensuring the “conduct of conduct” (Rose,
1996, p. 12). This kind of government reaches into families and indi-
viduals, with the aim:
not just to control, subdue, discipline, normalize, or reform them, but

also to make them more intelligent, wise, happy, virtuous, healthy,
productive, docile, enterprising, fulfilled, self-esteeming, empowered, or
whatever. (Rose, 1996, p. 12)
Dissatisfaction with the self and self-oriented distress has given rise to
what has been described as a “psychiatric society” (Rose, 2018, p. 23), a
therapeutic society (Wright, 2011), or, as Furedi (2004, p. 2) suggests, a
pervasive and highly emotional “therapeutic culture” that enables indi-
viduals to identify as “vulnerable” (p. 1), with each disappointment
or setback a threat to their self-esteem and wellbeing. The therapeutic
culture, emerging as a result of a decline in tradition (Sennet, 1976),
religion and politics (Furedi, 2004), addresses problems with individuals’

wellbeing and low self-esteem through the professionalisation of relation-
ships and the dismantling of informal networks, including friendships,
courtship, intimate relations, family and community (Furedi, 2004; Rice,
1996). It focusses negatively on psychological vulnerabilities rather than
on human potential (Moskowitz, 2001), endorsing and supporting an
“interior causation” (Smail, 2001, p. 5). This leads in turn to a “disorgan-
isation of people’s private lives” (Furedi, 2004, p. 104) and recalibration
of the human condition. Psychological trauma has become routinised
as a common response to everyday events “through pathologizing nega-
tive emotional responses to the pressures of life” (Furedi, 2004, p. 6).
Consequently, trauma, “an affliction of the powerless” (Herman, 1994,
p. 33), and the accompanying helplessness, become elevated to an objec-
tive mental health condition requiring professional help. Furthermore, a
“self esteem deficit” (Furedi, 2004, p. 25) has come to be recognised as a
collective illness that afflicts entire communities and has drawn the atten-
tion of governments, policymakers and the media. A heightened sense of
individualism leads individuals to recast social problems such as isolation
as emotional and personal ones of our own making (Beck & Beck-
Gernsheim, 2002; Furedi, 2004). The self that remains is a “distinctly
feeble version of human subjectivity” (Furedi, 2004, p. 107) and that
subjectivity has, in turn, become “the source of everything” (Bracken,
2002, p. 179).
A Profound Dissatisfaction with the Psy-Self

How did we get to this precarious and profound dissatisfaction with our
own selves? How have even very young children come to view themselves
with such intensity and dislike? Can anything be done to help children
and young people to look up and away from themselves? This book
examines the emergence of these psychologised discourses of the self in
education and through the “psy” disciplines (Rose, 1996) and considers
their effects on children and young people, on relationships both in and
out of school and on educational practices. We ask how the particular
forms of the self emerged in education and with what effects. We also
ask whether those more negative and punitive effects can be reversed and
whether it is possible to support young people in developing an orien-
tation to the self that is more positive, productive and playful. We draw
on Hacking’s (2007) concept of “making up people” to explore the ways
of knowing individuals that result from the increasing emphasis on and
more formalised mechanisms, for evaluating the self. We also undertake
a Foucauldian genealogy of the discourses of the self (Foucault, 1997)
in education in order to explore “the games of truth and error through
which being is historically constituted as experience; that is as something
that can and must be thought” (Foucault, 1985, pp. 6–7). A genealogy
also enables us to scrutinise the “focal points of experience” (Gros, 2008,
p. 3) for children and young people. These focal points are the forms
of knowledge, the normative frameworks of behaviour and the “poten-
tial modes of existence for possible subjects” (Gros, 2008, p. 3). While
Martin and McLellan’s proposed resolution to the problem of the “gen-
eration me” (Twenge, 2006, p. 1), self-interested individuals, is a form
of re-education of the self with a greater social orientation, our ambi-
tion is to uncover counter-narratives that enable the self to continue to
flourish, but in alternative, and potentially radical, ways. In so doing
we are envisioning more optimistic possibilities for the self rather than
attempting to diminish its potency. Our optimism is influenced by our
reading of the philosophers of difference (Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze
and Guattari) and of our recognition of the powerful consequences of a
different kind of self-attention: a strategic attention to the self and of the
benefits of “the concern of the self as a practice of freedom” (Foucault,
1994, p. 281). Education, as Reay (2017) reminds us, is an uncom-
fortable space of judgement and labelling, particularly for disadvantaged
students. It is important that we find ways of enabling young people to
comprehend the dangers and disadvantages they encounter throughout
their schooling and equipping them to face these down with alternative
narratives that overturn judgements and labels. We seek to articulate how
teachers may support children and young people in giving voice to these
counter-narratives as they move through school.
The Structure of the Book

The book is in two parts. In Part one we offer a critical analysis of the
discourses of the self that operate within interventions in relation to self-
esteem, self-concept, self-efficacy and self-regulation and their incursions
into education. We examine, in this analysis, the technologies of the self
that are put to work on children and young people, that is “any assembly
[of practices and related conventions and artifacts] structured by a prac-
tical rationality governed by a more or less conscious goal” (Rose, 1996,
p. 26). Following Rose (1996, p. 18), we explore the particular “prob-
lematisations, technologies, authorities, teleologies and strategies” that
arise within the context of education. Specifically, we consider how the
personhood of the student is made or remade when the self is at the
centre and examine the consequences for all those involved.
Part two of the book has a more optimistic orientation and explores
potential ways out of exhaustion with the self-regarding self. Here we
offer counter-narratives of the self, drawn from the arts and politics
providing alternative ways of when and how the self might speak. We
seek to both re-read existing counter-narratives, for example, Foucault’s
practices of the self and Nussbaum and Sen’s capability perspective and
give voice to new forms from the arts and politics that have yet to
be recognised in this way. From these, we articulate a framework for
performing counter-narratives that “turn things on their heads … [and]
upset the established order” (Rego, 2019) but which also expand the
“bandwidth of ways of being human” (Rose, 2018, p. 181) and allow
individuals to live well.
Each of the Chapters in Part one follows a similar format and
draws on Foucault’s (1977) concept of intensification to offer a critical
commentary on the emergence of self in its various manifestations in
education and consider its effects. The following analytical questions are
addressed, using Nealon’s (2008) framework for undertaking a genealogy
of the nineteenth century. Illustrative examples are drawn from Nealon’s
analysis:
1. What mode of power is operating (e.g. biopower)?

2. Who is considered to be the primary actor (e.g. individual)?
3. What is the primary target (e.g. lives)?

4. What is the primary hinge (e.g. governmentality)?
5. What is the primary practice whereby saturation is achieved (e.g.
Norm)?
6. Where can the most intense form be seen (e.g. sexuality)?
7. What is the desired outcome (e.g. autocontrol)?
To these seven questions, we add an eight, educational, question,
namely:
8. What new educational demands or challenges arise for teachers (e.g.
increased behavioural problems)?
This framework guides the analysis of each of the Chapters in Part one
and allows us to examine how the self becomes more embedded and
saturated in educational practices and capture increasing numbers of
people.
Chapter 2, Making strange the history of psychological discourses of
the self in education, tracks the emergence of self-esteem, self-concept,
self-efficacy, self-regulation and resilience in education. It identifies the
“psy” disciplines, such as psychiatry or psychology, from which these
constituents of the self-emerged and at whom and what they were
directed. The Chapter also traces how each of these manifestations of
the self was validated and subsequently promulgated and practised to the
point of saturation. No critical evaluation of the path towards saturation
is provided here; rather, we are concerned with mapping the trajectories
of the various incarnations of the self in education.
In Chapter 3, Schooling the (achieving) self, school structures, systems
and processes, including assessment, are subjected to scrutiny. Their role
as “host institutions” for the incorporation of the self and as sites for the
production of individualising evidence is analysed. The effects of school
practices (both pedagogic and social) on the child’s self, and their fami-
lies, are also considered. We examine the impact of the incursion of the
self into education on the schools and their personnel and the overall
consequences of the intensification of the self. This includes a discussion
of different ways in which students and teachers have come to be known
to themselves and to one another.
Chapter 4, Mental disorder in school and the damaged self , expands

on the analysis offered in Harwood and Allan’s (2014) Psychopathology
at School: Theorizing mental disorder in education and directs it to a
critique of the emergence and saturation of the self. Here we illus-
trate how psychopathologisation functions as a primary hinge within
schools to operationalise the demarcation of the self as abnormal/normal
(Foucault, 2008). Through psychopathologisation, the badly behaving
child (whose behaviour might have hitherto recognised as elements
within, for instance, a reasonable cultural response, or explanations that
draw on concepts of a developmental cycle) can be re-presented as a self
that is damaged and mentally ill.
Chapter 5, Wellbeing and happiness, begins with a review of inter-
national comparisons of wellbeing and happiness from, for example,
the World Happiness Report (2019) and the UNICEF “Report Card”
(2020, 2021), documenting inequalities in child wellbeing in rich coun-
tries. The Chapter also documents the levels of stress among children
that are reported and considers the increased propensity for such (self )
reporting. The increased attention given to the promotion of wellbeing
and happiness among children is examined through the genealogical
framework of questions detailed above and includes scrutiny of the
appropriation of self-esteem as an educational goal (Martin & McLellan,
2013).
The second part of the book, Counter-narratives of the self, moves from
the critical to the political and takes up the element of resistance in
Foucault’s genealogy. In the absence of a specific framework of resistance
from Foucault, we have developed the following questions to guide the
subsequent Chapters:
a. Who or what was the point of provocation?

b. Who is the prime actor?
c. Who, or what, is the principal object?
d. What form does the resistance take?
e. What are the (speculated) effects?
We use these questions to review examples from the capable self, the
represented self and the politicised self (Chapters 7, 8 and 9) and eval-
uate them as instances of Foucault’s (1985) practices of the self or ethical
practices:
1. Determination of the ethical substance: the identification of the part of

oneself as to be worked upon.
2. The mode of subjection: how the individual recognises how he or she
operates in relation to certain rules and seeking ways of observing
these rules.
3. Self-practice or ethical work: what is done to comply with a given rule
to effect transformation.
4. The Telos: the ultimate goal to be achieved through ethical work.
Chapter 6, The pleasure(s) of the self, takes up the later part of

Foucault’s work (contained in his writing on ethics, transgression and
the history of sexuality) to detail practices of the self and the exploration
of the self as a work of art. The distinctive feature of this Chapter is
that it attempts to show how Foucault’s framework for the practices of
the self—determination of the ethical substance; the mode of subjection;
self-practice or ethical work; and the telos—could be put into practice.
It offers an orientation of the self that is positive, productive and playful
rather than one that is psychologised and pathologised.
The capable self , drawing on the capability perspective, first devel-
oped by Amartya Sen (1999a, 1999b) and further elaborated by Martha
Nussbaum (2010), is the subject of Chapter 7. Sen’s basic framework of
capabilities is outlined in relation to the analytical framework of resis-
tance documented above; Nussbaum’s development of a list of “Central
capabilities” is reviewed alongside the subsequent debates about whether
such a list could ever be definitive. We also connect with the work devel-
oped in Harwood et al. (2017) that draws on the capability approach
[Sen, and work by Wolff and De-Shalit, (2007)] to explore what it means
to be a capable self, and discuss the practice of selfwork.
Chapter 8, Re-presenting the self , selects from the vast array of works of
art which re-present the self as political and consider the dramatic effects.
Examples from a range of art forms are reviewed as acts of resistance that
reframe the self. They include James Joyce’s epiphanies of the everyday in
Ulysses; the Tamil writer, Jayakanthan whose work challenges the stigma
of mental illness; the play Biscuit Land—Changing the World, One Tic at
a Time; the film Welcome to Me and the artwork of Riva Lehrer.
Chapter 9, Politicising the self , looks at individuals in contemporary
society who have generated public selves, in Hacking’s (2007) terms,
making themselves up for specific political ends, but who may simulta-
neously have altered how they have come to know themselves as people.
Using the same framework as in Chapters 7 and 8, we consider the self-
work of four individuals in political and public life: climate activist Greta
Thunberg; Chris Sarra, an Indigenous educationist; Malala Yousafsi,
activist for female education and Stephanie Shirley, a child refugee who
became a philanthropist and autism campaigner.
We begin the final Chapter, Performing the self: counter-narratives in
everyday life, with some reflections on the extent of the damage done
to children and young people and indeed to adults and society as a
whole by the hyper-attentiveness to the self. We consider the resilience
of the psy-disciplines and associated discourses, but nevertheless assert
our ambition to interrupt these and reorient towards an alternative kind
of selfwork. We offer a manifesto for selfwork which denotes intensive,
relational activity and engages with the human and the non-human. We
speak directly to teachers through the material examples of the capable,
re-presenting and political selves, to hopefully help them to support chil-
dren and young people to find their counter-narrative voices as well as
undertaking selfwork of their own.
We offer, in this book, both a critique and an interruption of what
the philosopher Adam Smith (1976/1759, p. 145) referred to as “the
great school of self-command”. This notion of the self has grown in
authority in recent years, allowing the self to become commodified and
pathologised (Martin & McLellan, 2008; Rose, 1996) and re-presented
as damaged, traumatised and suffering, an issue poignantly described by
Nietzsche (1969):
For every sufferer instinctively seeks a cause for his (sic) suffering, more
exactly, an agent; still more specifically a guilty agent who is susceptible
to suffering—in short, some living thing upon which he (sic) can on
some pretext or other, vent his (sic) affects, actually or in effigy … This
… constitutes the actual physiological cause of ressentiment, vengefulness,
and the like: a desire to deaden pain by means of affects … to deaden,
by means of a more violent emotion of any kind, a tormenting, secret
pain that is becoming unendurable, and to drive it out of consciousness
at least for the moment: for that one requires an affect, as savage an affect
as possible, and, in order to excite that, any pretext at all. (p. 127)
The interruption that we offer is discursive, political and hopeful. We

seek, through our counter-narratives, to break into the hegemonised self
across the psy-disciplines and this is in the spirit of moving from what we
are, expressed in the language of “I am”, which as Brown (1993, p. 407)
notes has a “defensive closure on identity”, to the more reflexive and
open notion of what we want (Brown, 1993; Garland-Thomson, 2011).
The political dimension of the interruption is illustrated in the way the
counter-narratives succeed in talking back to power (Thompson, 1984)
and to the governance structures and forms of regulation that force indi-
viduals to perform as highly self-regarding subjects. Finally, this book
offers an interruption that is hopeful and which reimagines a future for
our children and young people which allows them to be both healthy
and happy and enables them to cultivate selves that are both capable and
content.
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Part I
Tell Me My Self
2
Making Strange the History
of Psychological Discourses of the Self
in Education
Maybe the problem of the self is not to discover what it is in its

positivity, maybe the problem is not to discover a positive self, or the
positive foundation of the self. Maybe our problem is now to discover
that the self is nothing else than the historical correlation of the technology
built in our history. Maybe the problem is to change those technologies.
(Foucault et al., 2016, p. 76, emphasis added)
Taking up this provocation by Foucault, our approach in this Chapter is

to consider the historical discourses of the self in education by asking:
what might be understood if we treat the educational self as a historical
correlation of contemporary technology? This movement shifts from an
attempt to provide a historical overview of the discourses of the self in
education. This process of “making strange” is a different way of tack-
ling the historical questions. This is helpful for our consideration of
the historical discourses of the self because attempting a “history” or
even a Foucauldian genealogy of psychology and the self in education
is beyond the scope of this Chapter. Moreover, the book, The Educa-
tion of Selves by Jack Martin and Ann-Marie McLellan (2013) provides
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 23

Switzerland AG 2022
J. Allan and V. Harwood, On the Self: Discourses of Mental Health and Education,
The Language of Mental Health,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10996-6_2
a rare critical account on educational psychology and self. Indeed, this

book-length analysis provides an extremely well-argued account of the
history of educational psychology. We interact closely with it as we
examine how the dominating conception of the self in education might
just be “a historical correlation of the technology built in our history”
(Foucault et al., 2016, p. 76).
In following this line of questioning we are prompted to ask, what are
the technologies that, to paraphrase Foucault, have been built in the rela-
tively recent history of mass education that have come to be known as the
psychological self in education? By emphasising an interrogation of these
technologies and their correlation to the contemporary education forms
that are so “familiar” we can be prompted to look differently at what
appears as a natural formation of the self articulated in education. This
idea of questioning the familiar is inspired by what Foucault termed an
“ethics of discomfort” (1997a, p. 121) in a piece first published in 1979
in Le Nouvel Observateur. This approach has been used, for example, as
a generative way to differently consider the conflation of “woundedness”
with LGBTI+ young people in schools (Harwood & Rasmussen, 2004).
This welcoming of a kind of feeling for discomfort—an ethics of
discomfort—has much to do with embracing the importance of, as
Foucault writes, to “never consent to be completely comfortable with
your own certainties” (1997a, p. 127). Here we are encouraged to engage
in a type of ethics that is uncomfortable, and more actively, welcomes
discomfort. In this piece Foucault emphasises that:
One must clearly feel that everything perceived is only evident when
surrounded by a familiar and poorly known horizon, that each certitude
is only sure because of the support offered by unexplored ground. The
most fragile instant has roots. (1997a, p. 127)
What is “evident” then, to respond to this suggestion, is only so when

it is “surrounded by a familiar and poorly known horizon” (Foucault,
1997a, p. 127). Engaging in an ethics of discomfort, we say that the
psychological discourses of the self in education are only evident when
“surrounded by a familiar and poorly known horizon”. Importantly we
need to be mindful “that considering the poorly known horizon does
2 Making Strange the History of Psychological … 25
not lead to a perusal of what is truth, but rather, a deliberate questioning

that asks, how is this relation to truth formed?” (Harwood & Rasmussen,
2004, p. 309). Returning to our interrogation of the psychological tech-
nologies of the self, we are particularly concerned with recognising the
poorly known horizon in the familiar terms of self-esteem, self-concept,
self-efficacy and self-regulation. The Chapter, then, sets out to track how
such manifestations of the self are validated and promulgated and prac-
tised to the point of saturation. No critical evaluation of the path towards
saturation is provided here; rather, we are concerned with arguing that
the self, as we so often experience it in education, has become very
familiar and that this can be better understood by grasping its processes
of intensification.
Our interrogation of these psychological technologies in education
uses Nealon’s (2008) framework to guide the analysis. As we described
in Chapter 1, we respond to eight questions, seven of which are drawn
from Nealon’s (2008, p. 28) work with our addition of an eighth to
consider educational demands and challenges. Nealon (2008) uses these
seven questions to offer an analysis of how “Foucault’s D&P [Discipline
and Punish] traces a genealogical path of modern power’s mutations”
(p. 28). It provides a way to think through changes (or “mutations”) in
power, such as between sovereign power in the seventeenth century and
disciplinary power in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. Using these
questions helps to focus our analysis on dominating forms of power;
primary actor; primary target; primary hinge; primary practice; and the
most intense form. Each of these questions points us towards an analysis
that concentrates on what is dominating and in so doing, assists us to
look critically at the familiar.
It is important to take up a Foucauldian provocation to both engage
with history differently and to avoid historicism. For instance, as
Foucault explains, referring to his own research, “this is not what could
be called a historicist reduction, for that would consist precisely in
starting from these universals as given and then seeing how history
inflects them, or alters them, or finally invalidates them” (2008, p. 3).
Foucault is explaining that in the 1979–1980 lectures he set out to
attempt a different approach to history. As he states, this “is exactly the
opposite of historicism: not, then, questioning universals by using history
as a critical method, but starting from the decision that universals do not
exist, asking what kind of history we can do” (2008, p. 2). Eschewing
universals, Foucault (2008) moves his gaze to what he terms “concrete
practices”. As he outlines, “instead of starting with universals as an oblig-
atory grid of intelligibility for certain concrete practices I would like to
start with these concrete practices and, as it were, pass these universals
through the grid of these practices” (2008, p. 3). It is this emphasis on
practices that, arguably, is the key to this striving to do history differently
(or more accurately, a different kind of history).
The Bipolar Technology of Biopower

(The Mode of Power in Operation)
Articulating the mode of power in operation commands us to compre-
hend how this form of psychological discourse of self has become quite
so dominant in the landscapes of western schooling. When we pause to
think of this dominance, or more accurately, its extent, we can reflect
on the numerous ways in which it seeps into the everyday of schooling.
This psychological discourse of the self can be seen in a range of diverse
places, from conversations about children in schools and by parents and
caregivers, to usage in promotional material about schools themselves.
An example of the latter can be seen in this description published in the
Boarding Schools Guide in a national newspaper in Australia. Written as
material about an Australian boarding school for girls, the promotional
material states, “What girls’ schools do is purposefully develop girls to
understand their gender identity and shape their self concept, self effi-
cacy, and self confidence” (The Australian, 2021). What we are drawing
attention to here is not necessarily a critique of the claim, but rather,
with the way in which this specific educational psychology language slips
effortlessly into a description about girls’ schools and gender identity.
In another 2021 article that connects with these discourses, journalist
Jessica Powell writes in the UK Times Education Supplement about the
pandemic and “teacher burnout”. Powell includes quotes from an inter-
view with “Jamie Thom, a secondary teacher in Scotland who has also
worked in England, [who] agrees that the testing culture is at the heart
of much of the stress that teachers face” (Powell, 2021).
When you’re in the classroom environment, it’s a reciprocal relationship—

you know when a lesson is going well”, says Thom. “But when you’re
teaching online, secondary kids mute themselves and turn their screens
off, so you’re basically like a cheesy radio presenter delivering a mono-
logue. I think that’s quite demoralising. A lot of people feel that their
self-efficacy has taken a bit of a slap in the face. (Powell, 2021, citing
interview with Thom)
While this article does refer to the issue of pressures on teachers prior to
the pandemic, the piece draws attention to the complications wrought
by the pandemic, and as can be seen in Thom’s statement, the issues
with teaching in an online environment. Again, we see in this descrip-
tion how the term “self-efficacy” appears as an everyday description of
teachers’ work. That is, self-efficacy appears as a straightforward term
applicable to teachers: a common-sense term used by this teacher to
explain a “demoralising” experience.
There are other examples from a range of international contexts. For
instance, research from Brazil with initial teacher education students
attests to the value of self-regulated learning (SRL) for these university
students and the “potential to improve their effectiveness as students and
as educators” (Arcoverde et al., 2020, p. 13). A study in Tanzania also
investigated SRL using a mobile education tool in a higher education
setting, advocating the value of students using this technology and
building what it regarded as innovation in learning in Tanzania (Mwan-
dosya et al., 2019). In Indonesia, a study investigating the impacts
of the Covid-19 pandemic on student learning from home, drew on
concepts of self-regulation and mathematics software and found learning
differences between male and female high school students (Wijaya et al.,
2020). Another Indonesian study by Sulisworo et al. (2020) generated
data on student self-regulated learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reporting on this data from 6571 1st-grade to 12th-grade students in
Yogarkarta, the authors state a clear link between SRL and success in
online learning (and hence learning in the Pandemic),
One of the factors that determine the success of online learning is the level
of student self-regulated learning. Thus understanding the capabilities of
SRL is essential for achieving successful education during this pandemic.
(Sulisworo et al., 2020, p. 1)
The research by Sulisworo et al. (2020) reports on a large data set on self-
regulated learning from 61 schools. This is a reasonably large number
of schools, suggesting to us the reach of these discourses in Yogarkarta,
either in terms of already existing use, or perhaps its communication via
this study. In the United States, an article in a Chicago-based newspaper
includes the terms self-efficacy and self-concept among other curricula
terminology, such as STEM and environmental education:
The district asked that programs feature one or more of the following
elements: environmental education and connecting youth with nature;
exploring various curricula such as STEM, STEAM, visual and
performing arts, and leadership; building self-esteem and self-efficacy
promoting cross-cultural experiences; and promoting active living. (Vega,
2021)
In an example from Canada, a newspaper article about an “art showcase”

by secondary students seamlessly links the concept of self-efficacy with
student engagement in visual art during the restrictions imposed by the
pandemic, “It allows the students to advocate for themselves and works
on their own confidence and self-efficacy” (McKay, 2021). Once more,
we see discussion of the notion of self-efficacy easily integrated and, we
might say logically, connected. In this instance, it is about engaging in
the visual arts. Each of these examples from newsprint media in 2021,
while discussing varying education topics, made direct connections to
self-efficacy for students and for teachers. While these are only a few
examples, the point we are making is that this psychological discourse of
the self is very much a part of a familiarly used “education vernacular”.
How is it that in our contemporary moment, when it comes to talk
of the self in education, there is this tendency to lean readily into such
psychological discourses? When this occurs, as we have seen, we should
not be surprised to be presented with terminology such as self-regulation,
self-efficacy, self-esteem and self-concept. What then is the mode of
power in operation? It seems to us that the relations of power at work

have, in the Foucauldian sense, a certain capacity of disciplinary expertise
and capacity of enthrallment. These are modes of power that Foucault
termed “biopower” and are, as he describes in The History of Sexuality:
this great bipolar technology—anatomic and biological, individualising

and specifying, directed towards the performances of the body, with atten-
tion to the processes of life-characterised a power whose highest function
was perhaps no longer to kill, but to invest life through and through.
(1976, p. 139)
Here Foucault is referring to “two poles of development linked together

by a whole intermediary cluster of relations” (1976, p. 139), hence the
term “bipolar technology”. The first pole he famously characterises as “an
anatomo-politics of the human body” (1976, p. 141, original emphasis).
This pole is, to put it simply, concerned with a control over the indi-
vidual body. The second pole has what we might say is a larger ambition
of control, that of “the species body” (Foucault, 1976, p. 141), and seeks
to wrangle and exert control over the population. Foucault’s own descrip-
tion of this broader ambition offers a provocative insight into how we
might think about this second pole of bipolar biopower:
the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the
biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health,
life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause these
to vary… (1976, p. 139)
This second pole of biopower “dovetails” (Foucault, 2003, p. 242) into

the first. And while the first pole harnesses disciplinary powers focussed
on the singular body, the second expands to encompass the species (or
the population). To be so expansive demands “technique [that] exists
at a different level, on a different scale, and because it has a different
bearing area, … makes use of very different instruments” (Foucault,
2003, p. 242). At work here, then, is a complex arrangement of biopower
that can be conceptualised as operating together, albeit configured at two
differing poles. We can catch a glimpse of how this arrangement operates
in the example discussed above of UK teachers who decry their loss of
self-efficacy in the face of the accumulating pressures of neoliberal educa-

tion and that increased even more during the Covid-19 Pandemic. These
teachers are affected by psychological discourses at both an individual
level and at a population level.
Boarding schools that draw on these discourses to explain how gender
identity is achieved, as we also saw in another of our examples, are like-
wise influenced by biopower. There are ways that such regulation can be
achieved at the individual level and there are processes at a wider level
that promulgate and support this hierarchy of truth about the self and
education. In this way, as Foucault reminds us, “[t]he disciplines of the
body and the regulations of the population constituted the two poles
around which the organisation of power over life was deployed” (1973,
p. 141). This understanding of bipolar technology of biopower helps us
to grasp the challenge of recognising that there is a poorly known horizon
surrounding these familiar discourses. If we follow the cues, we could
attempt tackling these familiar psychological terms to grasp the truths
at work, and by consequence, the poorly known horizon. To do so we
need to have insight on how the poles of biopower operate to discipline
individual bodies and regulate populations.
The Conundrum of the Self —(The Primary

Actor)
If biopower can be understood as operating in ways able to influence
both the individual, even in ways that are “virtual”, “at a distance”
(Nealon, 2008) and the population via a range of “very different instru-
ments” (Foucault, 2003, p. 342) how might we recognise the “primary
actor”? We could say the self is the primary actor, after all, isn’t the self
the focus? Or since Nealon (2008) stated the “expert” was the primary
actor in his analysis of “modern power’s mutations” in Discipline and
Punish (Foucault, 1977) we might be drawn to appoint the educational
psychologist as the primary actor. When we return to how we are inter-
acting with the historical, we come up against the problem of the familiar
and its poorly known horizon. The self or the expert of that self might
appear to be primary actor. However, what looms large when we look to

the poorly known horizon is the conundrum of the self.
The conundrum of the self accompanies the dominant psychological
discourses of self. By using this phrase “conundrum of the self ”, we are
drawing attention to the numerous other ways to think about the self
(for instance, in, philosophy, by numerous cultures, the range of reli-
gious teachings) as well as the debate that occurs in psychology about the
discourses of the self. This dominant form and its poorly known horizon
are, we argue, so intertwined that it is strategic to not accept that the
former is the primary actor, but rather, the latter (or its expert). That
is, we are proposing to place the conundrum of the self as the primary
actor. Doing so upsets the “ease of dominance”; bringing into view the
debate, conjecture and different ways of thinking about the self. This
places an emphasis on this poorly known horizon and assists us to recog-
nise how the dominant form, in a word, dominates. A persistent issue
with this domination, as we argue, is the “suppression” from view of the
many other ways we can think about the self. We move to an extended
discussion about these other ways of the self in the second part of this
book.
In terms of the dominance of the contemporary psychological
discourses of the self in education, we turn to Martin and McLellan’s
(2013) book, The Education of Selves: How Psychology Transformed
Students. Their argument about the emergence of these discourses in
education proposes two “traditions” as emerging, the “self-expressive”
and the “entrepreneurially self-managing and entitled participants in
their own education” (Martin & McLellan, 2013, p. 2). Martin and
McLellan (2013, p. 157) coin the phrase the “triple E student (expressive,
enterprising, and entitled)” to describe this contemporary psycholog-
ical self in education and the influence of the “two traditions”. In his
discussion of this book, Sugarman (2015) describes their analysis as
“delineat[ing] two traditions of thought regarding selfhood that emerged
in the latter half of the twentieth century to produce a view of learners”
(p. 177). This distinction into two traditions is useful since it supports a
critical analysis of these discourses of the self and a way to consider the
familiarity of contemporary terminology. Following this approach, we
draw on Martin and McLellan’s (2013) work, together with a discussion
by Sugarman (2015), to provide a summary of these “two traditions” and

their emergence in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 is organised to follow the argument by Martin and McLellan
(2013) and describes the “two traditions” of self that they outline.
Tradition 1 is the “expressive self ” and includes the familiar terms self-
concept and self-esteem. Tradition 2 is the “managerial self” and includes
the familiar terms self-efficacy and self-regulation. Each of the rows is
organised to highlight characteristics that assist in considering how the
conundrum of the self becomes less visible (or perhaps even vanishes) as
a “conundrum” and what becomes familiar is the surety of the psycholo-
gised expressive self and psychologised managerial self. While it is not the
case that there is a static point when the conundrum of the self becomes
less visible, or vanishes, what it is possible to say is when these psycho-
logical discourses of the self in education are at their most convincing,
seem undeniable or “natural”, the horizon surrounding them is unfa-
miliar. In this sense, we can say that there is a relationship or dependency,
one where, through dominance of one form of thought on these, others
become its poorly known horizon.
By drawing attention to “noticeable emergences”, we are not laying
claim to an origin of these forms; but rather are considering possi-
bilities that supported the emergence of these forms of psychological
truths about the self. Martin and McLellan (2013) propose that Eigh-
teenth Century Romanticism (and the legacy of Rousseau) offers such
a possibility for the emergence in discourse of the expressive self. They
also remark on the shifts in dominance of psychological forms in the
mid-twentieth century, noting an increasing dominance of cognitive
psychology and decreases in behaviourism. While this is necessarily a very
brief overview, and only certain aspects have been discussed, the point we
are making is of the shifts and ebbs, how different knowledges of the self
become prominent, while others have diminished in popularity, usage
and even, dare we say, esteem.
For the managerial self, Martin and McLellan (2013) propose,
drawing on work by scholars such as by Danziger (1997) and the case
for the influence of Locke in the seventeenth century. They write:
Table 2.1 “Two Traditions” of psychological self in education adapted from Martin and McLellan (2013) and Sugarman
(2015)
Measurable and Similarities
Technical manipulatable between
Tradition and Noticeable Mechanisms for by educational expressive and
object Emergencies Familiar Features Scientificity psychologists managerial self
Tradition 1 Eighteenth Affirmed Rise of Measurable “Possessed of an
Expressive self Century individual psychometry and cognitive inner core of
Self-concept Romanticism experience, cognitive structures and psychological
Self-esteem 1950s–1960s self-discovery, psychology saw operations capacities,
rejection of self-expression the reduction/ processes, and
behaviourism, diminishing of functions,
intensification humanistic values entirely
of humanistic separated from
psychology others and the
and cognitive world, that can
psychology retreat from
their actions and
experiences to
arrive at
self-knowledge
and
instrumentally
conceive their
expressive ends”
(Sugarman, 2015,
p. 178)
(continued)
2 Making Strange the History of Psychological …
33
Table 2.1 (continued)
34
Measurable and Similarities

Technical manipulatable between
Tradition and Noticeable Mechanisms for by educational expressive and
object Emergencies Familiar Features Scientificity psychologists managerial self
Tradition 2 Locke in “self as an entity 1980s and 1990s Raft of
Managerial self seventeenth separate from “spate of technologies
“self as strategic century its actions and measures, to measure
manager” (Martin & experiences, research, and the
(Martin & McLellan, capable of psychoeduca- management
McLellan, 2013, 2008) monitoring, tional of the self by
p. 54) reflecting on, interventions the self
Self-efficacy, determining and targeting
J. Allan and V. Harwood
self-regulation evaluating its self-efficacy and

own conduct” self-regulation”
(Sugarman, (Sugarman, 2015,
2015, p. 178) p. 178)
Although for Locke the appropriate vantage point for relevant observa-
tions of the consequences of selfhood was both private and introspective,
his emphasis on observation left a powerful legacy for a wide variety
of more contemporary, empirically minded psychologists. (Martin &
McLellan, 2013, p. 25)
Following their argument, we can see here the emergence of facets of

thinking that later have been harnessed in psychology. A second notice-
able emergence flagged in Martin and McLellan’s (2013) work is the
mid-twentieth century rejection of behaviourism. And we would also
add to this argument that as certain forms of the self have become
increasingly dominant, this has occurred at the expense of other forms
of thinking about the self. We return to another quote from Martin and
McLellan (2013) which brings this discussion of the influences together:
With Rousseau and the Romantics, all of the prepsychological ingre-

dients are in place for a new psychological view of selfhood that is
related to objective truth and science on the one hand (the Lockean
legacy) and to subjective authenticity and artistic creativity on the other
(the Rousseauian legacy). The former tradition of selfhood values and
privileges methods of objective self-monitoring and rational considera-
tion. The latter tradition of selfhood values and privileges methods of
subjective experience and affective expression. (pp. 28–29)
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, taking our line of critique,

that what is useful in this discussion is how it draws attention to the way
these influences have been harnessed in what we take now as the familiar
notion of the self in education.
The next column in the table, what we have termed “familiar features,”
prompts us to consider what is familiar about each of these tradi-
tions of the self. What we can find familiar in the first, the “expressive
self ”, are features such as affirmed individual experience, self-discovery
and self-expression. What is strikingly familiar in the second tradition,
what Martin and McLellan (2013) call the managerial self, is a self
with the charge to look over itself. As Sugarman explains, this is the
“self as an entity separate from its actions and experiences, capable of
monitoring, reflecting on, determining and evaluating its own conduct”
Another random document with
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But here General Concha interceded by exclaiming: “Stop,
Manolito, stop the firing! For God’s sake remember we are in Her
Majesty’s palace!”
So the firing was stopped, and the little girls, alarmed at the
noise, fell into each other’s arms, and cried with fright, whilst the
Countess of Mina strove to still their fears. The noise of firing was
heard down the corridors and the staircases known by the names of
those of the Lions and the Ladies. General Dulce was not content
with quelling the invasion of the palace by firing down the chief
staircase to prevent the ascent of any interloper, but, leaving
Barrientos in command of half the Guard at that spot, he went with
the other half into the Salon of the Ambassadors, and there fired on
the insurgents from the windows, until the whole Plaza de la Armeria
was swept free from any more possible invaders of the royal abode.
In the meanwhile Boria, Don Diego Leon, and others, were
caught in the Campo del Moro, the gardens of the palace. No mercy
was shown to the would-be perpetrators of such a deed as the
kidnapping of the royal children, and Diego de Leon, who had been
covered with laurels for his brilliant services in the civil war, was shot
with his accomplices without demur.
In the meanwhile General Espartero, in his Palace of la Buena
Vista, was ignorant of the tragic scenes enacted at the palace until
they were over. Brought thither by the sound of firearms, he arrived
just as the insurrectionary force had been driven from the palace,
and hastening up the staircase stained with blood, he found the royal
children in their room weeping bitterly and much terrified, albeit at
the time of the alarming scene they had shown more courage than
could have been expected at such an early age. The Regent led the
little girls to a window of the palace to still the fears of the people,
who had hastened from all quarters at the noise of the firing, and the
halberdiers who had defended their young Queen and her sister so
bravely were all publicly applauded, promoted, and subsequently
given the Cross of San Fernando. The fact of gunshot penetrating
the royal apartment was unprecedented in history, and although the
halberdiers pressed into the room to protect the royal children, they
abstained from firing there on the invaders without, for fear of hurting
those in their charge. When the Cortes opened, Espartero escorted
the Princesses to the ceremony, and they were received with
enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty.
A short time afterwards Argüelles had to insist on the Order of the
Palace, by which the French Ambassador was not allowed entry to
the palace without official permission from the Regent.
When the Infante Don Francisco and Luisa Carlota decided to go
to Spain to see what personal influence could do in obtaining power
over their nieces, the King of France did all he could to prevent the
fulfilment of the plan. Difficulties were put in the way of the illustrious
travellers having horses for the journey, but Luisa Carlota exclaimed:
“This new obstacle will not stop us, as, if we can’t get horses, we will
go on foot.”
The exiled Queen-mother did all she could to influence her
children against their aunt, and she placed within the leaves of a
book of fashions, which she sent them from Paris, a paper which ran
thus: “Do not trust that woman! She causes nothing but disgrace and
ruin. Her words are all lies; her protestations of friendship are
deceptions; her presence is a peril. Beware, my child. Your aunt
wants to get rule over your mind and your heart to deceive you, and
to claim an affection of which she is unworthy.”
It was in 1842 that, eluding the vigilance of the Countess of Mina,
the lady-in-chief of the royal children, Luisa Carlota managed to see
a good deal of her young niece Isabel. The Infanta constantly joined
the young Queen in her walks, and, not content with talking to the
young girl about her cousin Don Francisco, so as to make her think
of him as an eligible parti, she one day gave her niece a portrait of
her son in his uniform as Captain of the Hussars. This portrait
Isabella was seen to show to her little sister, and so annoyed was
the Marchioness of Belgida, the chief Lady-in-Waiting, at what she
considered the breach of confidence on the part of the Infanta, that
she resigned her post. Argüelles had striven to warn Luisa Carlota
against the imprudence of her course, for the question of the young
Queen’s marriage was one in which the dignity of the Government,
the honour of the Queen, and the good name of the Regent, had all
to be considered. Therefore any attempt to compromise the Queen
by forcing any opinion from her which could not be based on
experience was detrimental to all concerned. In the Cortes he said: “I
do not believe in absolute isolation for a young Queen, but I think
she ought to be surrounded by those who will give her a good
example of prudence and self-reflection.” On the day that the
Marchioness of Belgida’s resignation was accepted the widowed
Countess of Mina was raised to be a grandee of Spain of the first
order, and she was appointed to the post vacated by the Countess.
Then, in pursuance of the opinion of the Ministers, Espartero had the
Princesses taken to Zaragossa so as to prevent further intrigues
about the Queen’s marriage.
In the “Estafeta del Palacio Real,” Antonio Bermejo compares
Olozaga with Argüelles. “He was,” he says, “austere like Argüelles,
who might be a little brusque, but never had a word or a single
phrase left the lips of this old man which could sully the purity of a
Princess. Moreover, the new guardian of the Queen was so dense
that he let a book be circulated in the royal apartment, called
‘Theresa, the Philosopher,’ which was said to be at the root of much
of the light behaviour of our girls. Who allowed this book in the
palace? Whence came this vile work, calculated to pollute the throne
of San Ferdinand? Narvaez and Gonzalez Brabo saw the book lying
on a chimney-piece in the palace, and they indignantly cast it into the
fire. It was thus that people sought to shake the foundation of the
throne; it was thus that the seed of corruption was sown which
resulted in so much weakness and failure!”
CHAPTER VIII
MINISTERIAL DIFFICULTIES IN THE PALACE
1843
There is doubtless truth in the opinion that the wish of the

Government for the majority of the Queen to be declared at the age
of thirteen instead of fourteen proceeded from the desire of self-
interested personages to rid the country of the Regent, and hasten
the time when the power would be fully in the hands of the young
Sovereign, when it could be turned to the designs of the Moderates.
This project soon took form by the Ministry presenting a petition
to Isabella, saying:
“The nation wishes and desires to be governed by Your Majesty
yourself. Your Majesty will have heard the result of the vote taken in
the Cortes which is about to assemble, and there the oath required
by the Constitution from a constitutional monarch will be received by
the same Cortes.”
So on November 8, 1843, the proposal was carried by a majority
of 157 over 16, and Queen Isabel was endowed with full power as
Queen of the realm—a Queen of only thirteen years of age, whose
education had been grossly neglected, and who was inclined to
follow the dictates of an undisciplined sensual nature.
R E C E P T I O N O F I S A B E L L A I I . AT T H E E S C O R I A L
From a Painting by R. Benjumea
Don Salustiano de Olozaga was then appointed President of the

Ministry which had supported the deed, whilst Francisco Serrano,
who was subsequently to play such an important part in the history
of Spain, remained Minister of War, and Frias Minister of the Marine.
But on November 29 the nation was astounded by the publication
in the Gazette of the decree for the dissolution of the Government
which had put the full power in the young Queen’s hand.
The reason for this course was not far to seek. Olozaga was not
only anxious to free himself from a Parliament with a majority of
Moderates (Tories), but he wished to be freed from the influence of
Narvaez, who represented the influence of the Queen-mother in the
palace. It was the fact of this influence which had decided both
Cortina and Madoz to refuse office.
The fact of the Provisional Government having appointed
Olozaga guardian of the young Queen showed that he was known to
have great influence over her, and whilst holding that appointment he
had been flattered by the grant of the decoration of the Golden
Fleece. This distinction was declared by some to have been the
outcome of his own astuteness, and it certainly made him unpopular.
The decree for the dissolution of the Parliament was promptly
followed by incriminating whispers against the President of the
Council.
Mysterious allusions were made to Olozaga having been so
wanting in respect to his Queen that he insisted with undue force on
the dissolution of the Parliament, and when she objected and wished
to quit the apartment, he locked the door, and forcibly drew her back
to the table, where he made her sign the document.
“There are,” says Don Juan Rico y Amat, “those who say that this
report was got up by the Moderates on the exaggerated story of the
young Queen, as they wished to get him out of power; but this theory
is opposed by the difficulty of believing that a story which tended to
lessen the dignity of the Crown could have arisen only through
Isabella herself, and those acquainted with the Minister knew the
story was in accordance with his imperious, impetuous nature, well
known in the palace. It had, moreover, often been noticed that the
Prime Minister had entered the royal apartments with a freedom
unbefitting the respect due to royalty.”
Olozaga wrote to General Serrano, saying that the fact of the
Queen sending him a letter saying she would be glad to have the
decree, granted at the instance of Olozaga, returned to her, for the
rectification of the first lines, saying, “For grave reason of my own I
have just dissolved,” etc., showed the absurdity of the invention that
it had been obtained from her by force. “But if anybody,” continued
Olozaga, “still insists on such an idea, I will have the honour of
suggesting a means whereby the truth will be declared in my
presence.”
None of the Moderates surrounding the Queen had the courage
to seize the reins of government at this time of confusion, and
Narvaez himself, whose power in the palace was well known, and
whose position as Captain-General of Madrid would have assured
him of a large number of followers, hesitated to take the rudder of
the deserted ship.
Whilst all was hesitation in the audience chamber, a young man
suddenly made his appearance, and passed with fearless step and
bold bearing through the assembly of timorous people, right up to
within two steps to the throne in the Salon of Ambassadors, and
there assumed the leadership which was shunned by those who
could have claimed it, by exclaiming in a loud, commanding tone:
“The Queen before all! A revolution or I....” And thus by this splendid
coup the premiership was taken by Gonzalez Brabo, a man almost
unknown in Madrid, except for his talent as a journalist.
His paper, El Guirigay, had been prohibited for its gross attacks
on the Queen-mother, and his Liberal ideas were well known. The
splendid coolness and courage with which this young man thus
contravened the storm of revolution in the very palace itself was
calculated to arouse the hatred of the populace, who had looked to a
revolution as a reform in all the conditions which make life
burdensome.
Thus three days later, when Gonzalez Brabo crossed the Plaza
de Oriente for his audience with the Queen at the palace, his coach
was stopped by a mob, and the threatening attitude of the people
would have checked anyone less cool and determined in his course.
The day of the reopening of the Congress after its suspension for
the formation of the new Cabinet was a very anxious one, for it was
clearly seen that the Queen had either been treated with flagrant
disrespect or her report of the Minister’s conduct had been untrue.
The mace-bearers, with their plumed hats and their breasts
bearing the embroidered arms of the city, were standing in
statuesque immobility on their elevated places directly under the
canopy at the head of the chamber. Every seat was filled; the boxes
had their full complement of ladies, and outsiders and
representatives of the press crowded the gangways. The President
of the Congress sat at the official table, flanked by his officials, and
all was expectation when the slight, dapper figure of Brabo, dressed
in black and bearing the scarlet portfolio of office under his arm,
walked with determined step to the seat of honour on the black[15]
bench of the Ministers, and from thence returned the astonished
glances of the deputies with a scornful smile and a contemptuous
look. After waiting for the storm of dissentient remarks to subside,
the Minister rose to his feet, and in clear, concise tones declared that
he had been summoned by the Queen to the palace at 11.30 on
November 3, and, being admitted to the royal presence, he found
that the audience included all the staff of the gentiles hombres,
including General Domingo Dulce, who had distinguished himself so
bravely on the night of the attempted kidnapping of the little
Princesses; Don Maurice Carlos de Onis, President of the Senate;
the Duke of Rivas; the Count of Ezpeleta; the Marquis of
Peñaflorida, and the Marquis of San Felices, Secretary of the
Senate, with Don Pedro José Pidal, President of the Congress of
Deputies, the President of the Academy of Languages, etc. The
gathering also included the Patriarch of the Indias and the Notary of
the King. And it was in the presence of this august assembly that Her
Majesty had made the following declaration: “On the evening of the
28th of last month, Olozaga proposed my signing a decree for the
dissolution of the Cortes, and I replied that I did not wish to sign it,
having, among other reasons, the fact that this Cortes had declared
me to be of age. Olozaga insisted; I again objected, rising from my
seat and proceeding to the door at the left-hand side of the table.
Olozaga intercepted my passage and locked the door. Upon this I
turned to the other door, but he then stepped to that one, which he
also locked. Then, catching me by the dress, he made me sit down,
and seized me by the hand and forced me to sign the document.
Before leaving me he told me to say nothing of the occurrence to
anybody, but this I declined to promise.”
[15] The Ministerial seats are now upholstered in blue.
“Then,” continued Brabo, “at Her Majesty’s request, we all signed

the royal declaration, for its transmittance to the archives.”
It was with great dignity and cleverness that Olozaga followed the
statement of Brabo by refuting the points, holding his own as to his
innocence, and yet not incriminating the Queen of untruth. When the
unfortunate man had entered the Cortes with his brothers, cries of
“Death to him!” came from a box filled with officers of the regiment of
San Fernando, whilst shouts of “Viva!” came from other directions.
“Happen what may,” said Olozaga, “I deserve the confidence of
the Queen, which I won as a Minister;” and it was in a voice
trembling with emotion that he continued: “The life I have led justifies
me—the person of my heart, my daughter, my friends. My
colleagues have all found me always an upright man, incapable of
failing in my duties, and this opinion I cannot sacrifice to the Queen,
nor to God, nor to the Universe. Being a man of integrity, I must
show myself as such before the world, even if it were on the steps of
the scaffold itself.”
It is difficult to get an impartial opinion upon this episode, so
fraught with importance and so conclusive of the short-sighted policy
of putting the kingdom into the hands of a young girl of thirteen, who
was utterly inexperienced in the art of government, as the Regent
had lived away from the palace, and fate had sundered her from
mother, aunts, uncles, and relatives, who, in any other station of life,
might have aided her with their counsels. In the excitement of the
moment the Minister had doubtless treated the Queen as he would
his own daughter, and, keenly anxious to gain the decree which
would empower him to rid himself of the majority of Moderates in the
House, Olozaga had not stopped to consider how an exaggerated
report might colour his action to the tone of that of a man guilty of
gross lèse-majesté. The Queen was but a child in his eyes, and
when she demurred at the seeming cruelty and ingratitude of
dissolving a Cabinet which had been so favourable to the
anticipation of her majority, it is probably true that the Minister patted
her familiarly on the wrist, and said, with a smile of satisfaction and
superiority: “I will accustom My Lady to such cruelties!”
The return of the Queen-mother was now solemnly demanded by
a deputation of grandees, senators, and deputies. The necessity of
the young Queen having a person of experience at her side was
eloquently set forth; and those who were envious of the power of
Gonzalez Brabo eagerly advised a course which would curtail his
influence and lead to the supremacy of the Moderates. So Maria
Cristina returned to Spain on February 28, 1844, arriving at
Barcelona on March 4, and at Madrid on March 21.
However, Gonzalez Brabo managed to retain power under the
new state of affairs, albeit at the price of being termed a traitor by his
own party.
In spite of being accused of acting as a panderer to the
Moderates, Olozaga’s advice to the Queen to legalize the marriage
of her mother with Don Fernando Muñoz was a step of good policy.
The ceremony in the chapel of the royal palace was celebrated by
the Patriarch of the Indias.
The husband was endowed with the decorations and dignities of
his position, and the Queen published the following decree:
“With due regard to the weighty reasons set forth by my august

mother, Doña Maria Cristina de Bourbon, I have authorized her, after
listening to the counsel of my Ministry, to contract a marriage with
Don Fernando Muñoz, Duke of Rianzares, and I declare that the fact
of her contracting this marriage of conscience, albeit with a person of
unequal rank, in no way lessens my favour and love; and she is to
retain all the honours and prerogatives and distinctions due to her as
Queen-mother. But her husband is only to enjoy the honours,
prerogatives, and distinctions, due to his class and title; and the
children of this marriage are to remain subject to Article 12, of Law 9,
Title 11, Book 10, of the Novisima Recopilacion, being able to inherit
the free property of their parents according to the laws.
“Signed by the Royal Hand
and the Minister of Grace and Justice,
“Luis Mayans.
“Given in the Palace,
“October 11, 1844.”
Wherever the young Queen appeared with her sister in the

country, their simple, unsophisticated ways filled the people with love
and admiration. One day, being only accompanied by two Ladies-in-
Waiting, they went to a village fête not very far from San Sebastian.
“Do you come from San Sebastian?” asked the peasants, with
the freedom characteristic of the country-folk in Spain.
“Yes, we do,” replied the Queen.
“And do you belong to the military?”
“No,” said the Queen, repressing a smile, “we are not military
people.”
“But at least you are Castilians?”
“Yes,” returned the Queen promptly; “we are girls from Madrid.”
“And do you like this part?” queried the interlocutor.
“Very much,” replied the Queen. “It is very cheerful.”
“Well,” continued the peasant, with frank familiarity, “sit down a bit
and see the lads dance.”
“Thank you very much,” replied the Queen, “but we must be
going.”
“You will have noticed,” rejoined the peasant, “that the roads are
very bad, and you will get very tired. These mountains are only fit for
strong feet, and not little delicate ones like yours.”
“Never mind,” returned Isabel; “we like to accustom ourselves to
everything. You don’t know, then, who we are?”
“It is not easy to guess,” was the answer; “but you are certainly
daughters of people of position and money.”
Then Isabel said: “I am the Queen.”
“The Queen! the Queen!” cried the people with delight; and cider,
fruits, and cakes, were pressed upon the royal party.
The Queen and her sister received constant signs of affection in
the neighbourhood of Guipuzcoa. They went to Pampeluna to
receive the Duke and Duchess of Nemours and the Duke of Aumale,
the arrival of the distinguished French guests was celebrated in the
city by a magnificent banquet and bull-fight, and the distinguished
Frenchmen stayed with the Count of Ezpeleta.
The fall of Miraflores, the able Prime Minister, was heralded by
the evident desire of both the Queens for a change of Ministry, and
those who wished to compass the fall of the Prime Minister were
listened to by the royal ladies.
Miraflores found Queen Isabella alone one day in the palace, and
Her Majesty said to the Minister:
“I have heard that the scandal this afternoon in the Congress has
been so great that the President of the Congress put on his hat in his
want of consideration for the Court.”
Miraflores explained that this act proceeded from no want of
respect for the Cortes.
“Nevertheless it must be dissolved to-morrow,” was the reply.
Narvaez became Minister of War as well as President of the
Congress. The part played at the palace in the change of Ministries
is seen in the scene between Pacheco and the Queen-mother.
Maria Cristina remarked to the Minister that the Government
would not last long. Upon this Pacheco placed two ounces of gold
upon the mantelpiece, saying:
“I bet you that money that the Cabinet will not fall to-morrow as
you say.”
Whereupon the Queen took another two ounces from her purse,
and placing them beside those of the diplomat, she said:
“The bet is made: if the Ministry does not fall to-morrow, the
money is yours; if it does, it is mine.” And the Ministry did fall.
This insidious influence of the camarilla was daily becoming more
dangerous. Presumptuous and illegal, it held its sway over all that
was prudent and constitutional, and thus the intrigues of the palace
came between the Cortes and the throne, and the country and the
Queen, exercising power to the detriment of the national
representation, the throne, the nation, and the Sovereign. “The royal
palace,” says Don Antonio Bermejo, “was a gilded cage where men
were slaves to envy and idleness.”
CHAPTER IX
ROYAL MATRIMONIAL SCHEMES—HOW ISABELLA’S SISTER FLED FROM
PARIS IN 1848
1843–1848
Isabella’s marriage was now a burning subject of discussion and

intrigue. The objection offered to her marriage with one of the sons
of the Infanta Luisa Carlota was the hatred reigning between the
mother of the proposed bridegroom and Queen Maria Cristina.
Louis Philippe of France had also his own designs in these
marriage prospects, and would fain have united the Dauphin to the
young Queen. But, as we know, England put her veto upon this
alliance, as it would have upset the balance of European power; so
the French King had to be contented with the marriage of his
younger son, the Duke of Montpensier, with Isabel’s sister Luisa
Fernanda.
There was a strong party in favour of the Queen’s marriage with
the Count of Montemolin, son of Don Carlos, as this union would
have put an end to the rivalry reigning between these two branches
of the Royal Family.
But finally attention was turned to the sons of Don Francisco de
Paula as the most suitable candidates for the hand of the Queen.
Miraflores explains that it was natural for the Duke of Cadiz, the
eldest son of the Infante, to be preferred by the existing Cabinet in
Spain and the Queen-mother, as he was a quiet, judicious Prince,
who had accepted and fulfilled with honour the post of Colonel of a
cavalry regiment; whilst Don Henry was of a turbulent disposition,
whose conduct left much to be desired at the Court of the Queen-
mother, to whom he had written from Bayonne very disrespectfully,
and in Brussels he had distinguished himself by publishing ideas
which bordered on being revolutionary.
I S A B E L L A I I ., Q U E E N O F S PA I N
After a Painting by De Madrazo
Whilst the royal party was at Pampeluna a mysterious document

in French fell into the hands of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, signed
“Legitimista.” The document ran thus:
“To the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“Before the Duc de Nemours and the Duc d’Aumale left Paris as
the emissaries of His Majesty the great ‘Père de famille,’ French
legitimists knew that the meeting at Pampeluna was merely a matter
of form. The Duc d’Aumale cannot be the husband of Doña Isabel;
his father knows it; M. Guizot and M. Bresson know it; and the
Queen, wife of the Citizen-King, knows it, and she is the most
strongly opposed to the union.
“The Duc de Montpensier will be the husband of the Infanta; this
is what is arranged, and what will take place. The Citizen Louis has
made a plan by which he thinks that in time Montpensier will occupy
the throne of Spain by the side of the immediate heiress, Luisa
Fernanda, because experienced doctors in medicine have declared
to Bresson that the Queen is very ill with an hereditary disease which
will take her to the grave. Why has not the Princess got it? That is a
mystery which time will reveal. Who will give his hand in marriage to
Queen Isabel? We hear that the candidature of Prince Henry is in
favour. But this illustrious youth cannot be the husband of the
Queen, neither can his brother, Don Francisco de Asis.
“The Minister whom I have the honour of addressing is ignorant
of the reason, and I can give it to him.
“The Minister must know that when Princess Luisa Carlota was
on her death-bed she did not, even in this sad moment, forget the
troubles of her sister; and impelled by conscientious scruples, she
sent for her illustrious sons, and, taking them each by the right hand,
she said these solemn words to them, in a sad tone and with a
tenderness which was truly Christian: ‘My sons, I wish to reach
heaven, I wish to quit you and the world without remorse, and
therefore I declare I repent having contributed through imprudent
affection to thwarting the legitimate succession of the Crown of
Spain, and this I swear on my salvation. So I command you as a
mother, as a Princess, and as a repentant sinner, to swear that
neither of you will aspire to the hand of Isabella.’”
Narvaez showed that this document was a fraud, as, at the death
of the Infanta, Don Henry was at some distance from Madrid, and
Francisco was at Pampeluna.
Isabella’s own feelings about her marriage were hardly taken into
consideration at all. As a matter of fact, she had been more inclined
to Prince Henry, the younger son of Doña Luisa Carlota, than to
Francisco, and it will be remembered that even as a child she had
admired the portrait of the Prince, which had been secretly sent by
the mother to the young Queen; but inclination had no part in the
negotiations, which were regulated entirely by self-interest and
policy, so the tide of influence was soon seen to be in favour of the
eldest son of Prince Francisco de Paula.
Don Henry was furious when he found he was left out in the cold
in the negotiation for the marriages of Isabella and her sister.
In a letter to Bulwer Lytton he writes:
“The old man at the Tuileries is very delighted and pleased. He

has written three letters full of hypocritical words, telling the great
Mama that she has drawn the first prize, and that she is very
fortunate to be marrying her daughters to Paquito (Francisco) and
Montpensier. A French fellow has arrived at the palace. You will
recollect that I told you before last night that, judging from the
appearance of things, you and I were going to have our noses put
out of joint.
“Istarez is very pleased. Cristina is delighted, and from what I
hear the weddings will take place very soon. When I see you I will
give you more particulars, which I cannot trust to the pen.”
The Queen-mother had been inclined to the idea of the Count of

Trapani, her brother, who had been educated in a Jesuit college at
Naples, as her son-in-law; but, as this idea had not been welcome to
the Government, attention had again been turned to one of the sons
of the Infante Don Francisco de Paula. Don Francisco, Duke of
Cadiz, the eldest, was favoured by France, whilst England gave
preference to Don Henry, Duke of Seville. As Miraflores says, it was
natural for the Queen-mother to prefer the eldest son of Don
Francisco, as he was a quiet Prince and one who had fulfilled his
duties with credit as Colonel of a cavalry regiment; whilst Don Henry
was of a more turbulent nature, and his antagonistic conduct to the
Queen-mother had excited some disturbance in the palace. In the
letters he sent from Brussels to Madrid he had manifested a
revolutionary spirit, which filled the Moderates with alarm. However,
poor Isabel preferred this hot-headed Prince to his more peaceful-
minded brother, and long were the arguments the young Queen held
with her mother against the project of her union with the elder
brother. Fortunately, however, the young Queen seemed somewhat
pleased with the appearance of Don Francisco, and at the fêtes
given in honour of the engagement she seemed very cheerful.
In an interview with Queen Maria Cristina, Bulwer Lytton said: “I
can understand your joy as a mother at seeing your eldest daughter
destined for a Prince who will make for the happiness of the royal
domestic hearth; but as to the marriage of the Infanta——”
Here Cristina interrupted him, saying: “It is decided that her union
with Montpensier will take place on the same day as that of the
Queen.”
The Duke of Rianzares had evidently favoured the alliance of the
Princess Luisa Fernanda with the Duke of Montpensier, for when the
matter was fully arranged Louis Philippe wrote to Queen Maria
Cristina:
“Please give my kind regards to the Duke of Rianzares, and
thank him for the part he has taken in the matter I have so much at
heart.”
So France and her supporters in Spain gained the day, and the
double wedding of the young sisters was fixed for October 10, 1846.
It was with all the magnificent state for which the Court of Spain is
famed that the reception by Isabel and Fernanda took place at the
palace (for the publication of the marriage contracts) in the Salon of
the Ambassadors. Alexandre Dumas was among the distinguished
Frenchmen accompanying the bridegroom of the Infanta Fernanda,
and the great author attended a bull-fight with the noblemen as
toreadors, and the fêtes all the week were of surpassing splendour.
The religious ceremony itself was held in the Church of Atocha
with all imaginable pomp and splendour. The Patriarch of the Indias
received the brides at the door of the church, and noticeable among
the French guests was Alexandre Dumas, author of “The Three
Musketeers.” All the Diplomatic Corps were there with the exception
of the English.
In the ceremony the Patriarch placed upon the open palms of the
Queen’s bridegroom the thirteen pieces of money pledged as his
dowry, which was then passed by the bridegroom to the hands of his
bride, saying, “This ring and this money I give you as a sign of
marriage,” and the Queen replied, “I accept them.”
The same ceremony was used with the Infanta and her
bridegroom, and then the prelate, with his mitre and crook, escorted
the royal couples to the altar, and there read the Mass. During the
Epistle the Patriarch presented the candles, veils, and conjugal yoke,
and at the conclusion of the Gospel the Patriarch turned to the
Queen and her bridegroom, and said to the latter: “I give Your
Majesty a companion, and not a servant; Your Majesty must love her
as Christ loves His Church.” And then the same words were said to
the other couple. The periodical which published this account of the
wedding remarked that the Queen and her husband looked smiling
and pleased, but the Infanta looked sad.
The attempt on the life of the Queen soon after her marriage
caused great excitement, and the trial of Angel de la Riva, a native of
Santiago, in Galicia, and editor of a paper called El Clamor Publico,
who was caught just after firing the shot, was followed with the
deepest interest.
The testimony of Don Manuel Matheu, officer of the Royal Guard
of Halberdiers, a man of thirty-five years of age, gives some idea of
the etiquette of the time.
He declared that on May 4, 1847, he was on duty, so when the
Queen returned from her drive he went as usual to receive her at the
foot of the staircase with his little company of six halberdiers, and a
Captain with a lamp, and two other attendants with their axes. On
descending from the carriage, Her Majesty said to him: “Do you
know that on passing through the Calle de Alcalá two shots were
fired at me.”
The officer returned: “Two shots at Your Majesty?”
“Yes,” was the reply; “you cannot doubt it; I saw them get down
from a carriage or cab.”
The Colonel was not aware if Her Majesty said an open carriage
or a shut one.
“I felt something,” she added, “pass over my forehead which hurt
me.”
“And as this was evident,” continued the officer, “I could but give
credit to Her Majesty’s words. Moreover, Her Highness the Infanta
Doña Maria Josefa added: ‘There is no doubt of the fact, for I myself
saw the men.’”
Then Her Majesty told the witness he was to inform the Ministers
of what had happened. This he did, leaving a message at the door of
the Secretary of State, and sending a halberdier to inform the
Minister of War.
It is not necessary to give further particulars of the long trial of the
accused. He was, as we know, first condemned to be beaten to
death, and being saved from this dreadful fate by the able defence of
Perez Hernandez, he was in November, 1847, condemned to twenty
years’ imprisonment. But on July 23, 1849, the Queen showed her
generous spirit by commuting the sentence to four years’ exile from
Madrid and all the royal resorts, as Her Majesty nobly gave full
benefit to the representation of the murderous lawyer’s madness, or
the influence exercised by others.
In the rapid and unexpected flight of the French Royal Family
from the Palace of the Tuileries, Princess Clementina, wife of the
Duke of Saxony, and the Duchess of Montpensier, were separated
from the King and Queen. When the Duke of Montpensier
accompanied his father to the carriages waiting for them in the Place
de la Concorde, he thought he would have no difficulty in returning to
fetch his wife, who had been confined for some days in her
apartments on account of her interesting condition of health. But the
crowds which had collected meanwhile in the gardens made it
impossible for the Prince to return to the palace. He had fortunately
left the Princess in the care of some of his suite and Monsieur Julio
de Lasteyrie, who was distinguished for his loyalty and popularity. So
the Duke mounted his horse and followed his father.
Directly Monsieur Lasteyrie saw that the palace was invaded, he
gave his arm to the Duchess of Montpensier, and in the confusion of
the moment they passed unnoticed from the gates and mingled with
the crowd. Monsieur de Lasteyrie hoped to arrive in time to put the
Princesses into the royal carriages, which, however, started off at a
gallop just as they arrived within sight of them.
So Lasteyrie escorted the royal ladies to the house of his mother.
In a few minutes Princess Clementina left the timely refuge, and
continued her way to the Trianon, where she met her father; whilst
the Duchess of Montpensier remained for the night under the
protection of Madame de Lasteyrie.
There she heard from her husband at Dreux that she was to join
him at the Castle of Eu, whither the King was going.
But the monarch found it impossible to get to this haven, so when
the young Princess arrived there the following day she found the
place deserted. Hearing an alarming rumour that a party of workmen
were coming to pillage the Palace of Eu, as they had ransacked the
one at Neuilly, the Duchess quietly left the place, and repaired to the
house of Monsieur Estancelin, a diplomat of the Bavarian Embassy.
Under the escort of this gentleman and that of General Thierry she
started off for Brussels. On passing through Abbeville, the sight of
the carriage attracted attention, and the people cried: “There are
royal fugitives in that coach!” Monsieur Estancelin put his head out of
the window, and, as his name was known in the district, he declared
that the lady was his wife, and he was going abroad with her. To put
the people off the scent, he then gave orders to the postilion to drive
to the house of a friend of his, well known for his republican opinions.
Arrived at the house, Estancelin whispered in the ear of his friend the
name and rank of the lady under his escort.
But the man, in fear of the consequences of the discovery of the
secret, declined to give his aid in the matter, in spite of all arguments
of both gentlemen in charge of the Princess, setting forth the
dreadful consequences of her being frightened or subjected to
imprisonment in her delicate condition.
It was all in vain; the republican declined to receive the Princess,
and they had to turn away from the door in despair, for several
people had gathered in front of the house, curious to see who could
be seeking shelter at such a late hour.
So Monsieur Estancelin bade General Thierry conduct the lady
out of the town by a particular gate leading to the bank of the river,
whilst he went in search of other friends, who might aid him to get
fresh horses and a carriage with which he would meet them.
So the poor Princess started forth with her military ally.
Unfortunately, the gate of the town led through a narrow exit only
meant for pedestrians. So they wandered along in the cold rain,
picking their way over the stones and rubbish of this out-of-the-way
road. The General, alarmed at the drenched condition of the
Princess and her evident exhaustion and fatigue, decided that he
had better let her sit on a stone to rest, whilst he went in search of a
guide or a refuge.
The officer hastened along the road, fearing to call the attention
of the enemy to the lady in his care, and yet anxious to get a guide to
the rendezvous appointed by Estancelin. Finally, to his delight, he
was accosted by a friend of Estancelin, who had sent him in search
of the couple, and, quickly returning to the Princess, they escorted
her to the carriage which was waiting on the highroad to Brussels.
“What dreadful adventures this awful night!” exclaimed General
Thierry, as the Duchess of Montpensier sought to recover one of her
shoes which had slipped off her weary wet feet in the mud.
“Never mind,” returned the brave Princess; “I prefer these
adventures to the monotony of the round table of work in the
sumptuous salons of the Tuileries.”
The relief with which the letter announcing the safety of her sister
was received by Queen Isabella can well be imagined, as in those
days the limited communication by telegraph was stopped on
account of the fog.
The fall of Louis Philippe relieved England of the fear of the upset
of the balance of European power from the astuteness with which he
had arranged the marriages of the Spanish Queen and her sister.
There was no doubt of the intentions which had led to the Duke
of Montpensier being the brother-in-law of the Queen, and the
unsuspicious girl was a prey to the reports which were spread by the
ambitious Orleanists.
CHAPTER X
A ROYAL QUARREL AND THE RECONCILIATION
It was soon seen that General Serrano’s influence with the Queen
surpassed the ordinary grade, and the Moderates were alarmed.
There were two parties in the royal palace—one on the side of
the Queen, and the other on that of the King; and the leaders of
these parties fostered the difference between the royal couple.
Francisco Pacheco, the King’s partisan, declared that a President
of the Congress was wanted who would give more independence to
the Crown, and who would receive the counsels of an intelligent
husband of the Sovereign; for the King-Consort should not be in a
position so secondary to that of the illustrious mother-in-law that she
can boast of having more power than he has.
When Isabella saw that Queen Maria Cristina’s influence in the
State was much resented by the Ministers, she advised her to go on
a visit to her daughter, the Duchess of Montpensier, and this counsel
was followed.
However, the want of union between the King and Queen was
soon evident to the world, and when it was announced that Isabella
was going to spend the rest of the summer at Aranjuez alone, whilst
the King remained in Madrid, it was seen that the Serrano influence
had become serious enough to cause a separation between the
royal couple. Isabella’s naturally good heart seemed softened when
she was leaving the palace, and it was evidently remorse which
prompted her to look anxiously back from the carriage, in search of a
glimpse of the husband at one of the windows of the royal pile. But
the coach rattled on, and the Queen’s search was in vain; whilst her
sad face, with its traces of tears, showed that things might have
been better had not the differences of the royal couple been
fostered, for their own ends, by intriguers of the camarilla.
Forsaken by his wife, Francisco followed the advice of his friends,
to enjoy himself in his own way; so he repaired to the Palace of the
Pardo, where banquets, hunting-parties, and other festivities
deadened his sense of injury at his wife’s conduct.
Those interested in the welfare of the land were disappointed
when the birthday of the Queen was celebrated by her holding a
reception alone at Aranjuez, whilst the King had a hunting expedition
at the Pardo. The Ministers came to the reception at Aranjuez, and
then promptly returned to the capital, leaving the Queen with her
trinity of Bulwer, Serrano, and Salamanca. General Salamanca was
at last sent by the King to Aranjuez to advise Isabella to return, but
she would not accept the condition of a change in the Serrano
position.
This refusal made the King decline to assist at the reception of
the Pope’s Nuncio at Aranjuez, and he was forbidden to return to the
royal Palace of Madrid.
Benavides, a courtier, anxious to heal this unhappy division in the
Royal Family, came to Francisco, and said:[16]
“This separation cannot go on; it is not good for the Queen or for
Your Majesty.”
[16] “Estafeta del Palacio Real,” Bermejo, vol. ii.
“That I can understand,” returned the King; “but she has chosen
to outrage my dignity as husband, and this when my demands are
not exaggerated. I know that Isabelita does not love me, and I
excuse her, because I know that our union was only for State
reasons, and not from inclination; and I am the more tolerant as I,
too, was unable to give her any affection myself. I have not objected
to the course of dissimulation, and I have always shown myself
willing to keep up appearances to avoid this disgraceful break; but
Isabelita, either from being more ingenuous or more vehement than I
am, could not fulfil this hypocritical duty—this sacrifice for the good
of the nation. I married because I had to marry, because the position
of King is flattering. I took the part, with its advantages. I have no
right to throw away the good fortune which I gained from the
arrangement. So I made up my mind to be tolerant, if they were
equally so with me, and I was never upset at the presence of a
favourite.”
Here the King was interrupted by Benavides saying:
“Allow me, Sire, to observe one thing. That which you now say
with regard to tolerance of a favourite is not in accordance with your
present line of conduct, for do you not demand the withdrawal of
General Serrano before agreeing to the reconciliation we are
asking?”
Then, with a singular calmness, the King returned:
“I do not deny that this Serrano is the main drawback to an
agreement with Isabelita, for the dismissal of the favourite would be
immediately followed by the reconciliation desired by my wife; but I
would have tolerated him, I would have exacted nothing, if he had
not hurt me personally by insulting me with unworthy names, failing
in respect to me, and not giving me proper consideration—and
therefore I hate him. He is a little Godoy, who has not known how to
behave; for he at least got over Charles IV. before rising to the
favour of my grandmother.”
The Minister of the Government listened with astonishment to the
King’s words. Don Francisco saw it, and continued:
“The welfare of fifteen million people demands this and other
sacrifices. I was not born for Isabelita, nor Isabelita for me, but the
country must think the contrary. I will be tolerant, but the influence of
Serrano must cease, or I will not make it up.”
Benavides replied that the Ministry deplored this unhappy
“influence,” which was getting burdensome to the Queen herself; but
Serrano had such a fatal ascendancy everywhere, and had won over
to his side the opposing elements, that any sudden step to put an
end to the evil would result in deplorable consequences for the
nation. “However, the Ministry has decided to get rid of this
pernicious influence,” continued Benavides. “It is seeking a way to
do so without a collision and its consequences; and one of the things
which would help to this course of the Cabinet would be the
immediate reconciliation of Your Majesties, as the preliminary to the
other steps which will lead to Serrano’s overthrow.”
The King refused. He said that his dignity demanded the
withdrawal of the “influence.” Fresh evident proofs had been given
that this hateful man was the cause of the Queen’s separation from
him, and therefore he was not inclined to go back from his word
about him.
So Pacheco and all the other Ministers, excepting Salamanca,
determined to resign if Serrano did not retire from the Court.
Benavides and Pacheco were among the deputation who
petitioned the favourite to agree to this step, but it was in vain. The
Ministers went backwards and forwards to La Granja without gaining
their purpose. Finally, in pursuance of the Pope’s advice, the Queen
decided to return to Madrid; and Salamanca, as Prime Minister, went
to the Escorial to report the fact to Bulwer.

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On the Self: Discourses of Mental

Health and Education Julie Allan

The Language of Mental Health

Cover credit: Richard Nixon/Alamy Stock Photo

Valerie Harwood, Anna Hickey-Moody, Sarah O’Shea & Sam

1 Introduction: The Psy-Self 1

Part I Tell Me My Self

Part II Counter-Narratives of the Self

10 A Manifesto for Selfwork 265

Julie Allan and Valerie Harwood are the authors of Psychopathology at

Julie Allan is a Professor of Equity and Inclusion at the University of

Valerie Harwood is a Professor of Sociology and Anthropology of

participation in educational futures. This work involves learning about

Fig. 6.1 Montage of images of Marc-André Leclerc

Table 2.1 “Two Traditions” of psychological self in education

Emerging adults are aware of and somewhat distressed by messaging that

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

themselves and attempt to manage themselves according to the psy-

The Distressed Self

A study by Lee et al. (2018) offered a scientific explanation for stress

University can be a stressful experience, as well as being fun and exciting.

The naming of stress by the very young, with children as young as 9

In and Out of Love with the Self

strand, enabling narcissistic dreams to come true. Although easy credit

To See Ourselves as the “Psy-Experts” See Us

institutions, offering the “promise of personhood” (Rose, 1996, p. 88).

In effect, the entire exercise transforms an important set of metaphys-

not just to control, subdue, discipline, normalize, or reform them, but

religion and politics (Furedi, 2004), addresses problems with individuals’

A Profound Dissatisfaction with the Psy-Self

The Structure of the Book

1. What mode of power is operating (e.g. biopower)?

3. What is the primary target (e.g. lives)?

Chapter 4, Mental disorder in school and the damaged self , expands

a. Who or what was the point of provocation?

1. Determination of the ethical substance: the identification of the part of

Chapter 6, The pleasure(s) of the self, takes up the later part of

The interruption that we offer is discursive, political and hopeful. We

Garland-Thomson, R. (2011). Misfits: A feminist materialist disability concept.

Monbiot, G. (2016, October 12). Neoliberalism is creating loneliness. That’s

Maybe the problem of the self is not to discover what it is in its

Taking up this provocation by Foucault, our approach in this Chapter is

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 23

a rare critical account on educational psychology and self. Indeed, this

What is “evident” then, to respond to this suggestion, is only so when

not lead to a perusal of what is truth, but rather, a deliberate questioning

The Bipolar Technology of Biopower

When you’re in the classroom environment, it’s a reciprocal relationship—

In an example from Canada, a newspaper article about an “art showcase”

power in operation? It seems to us that the relations of power at work

this great bipolar technology—anatomic and biological, individualising

Here Foucault is referring to “two poles of development linked together

This second pole of biopower “dovetails” (Foucault, 2003, p. 242) into

self-efficacy in the face of the accumulating pressures of neoliberal educa-

The Conundrum of the Self —(The Primary

appear to be primary actor. However, what looms large when we look to

by Sugarman (2015), to provide a summary of these “two traditions” and

Measurable and Similarities