What is the use of theory? A psychoanalytic discussion

Freud asking whether psychoanalysis could be taught in the university, and then whether it could be learned, provides an occasion for asking about the emotional uses of theory. The paper draws from literature, clinical writing and pedagogy to build a psychoanalytic discussion of teaching and learning that takes seriously phantasies of knowledge made from the creation, conveyance and reception of theory. This learning complex involves symptoms in education: resistance to theory, fear of theory, fear of words, and writing inhibitions. Freud’s third model of psychoanalysis, ‘working through’, suggests a new approach to the use of theory in university.