Certainty and uncertainty in pedagogical counseling

This paper investigates, on the side of counseling, the theme of the uncertainty of a piece of information communicated by a speaker. This uncertainty derives, according to Carl Rogers, perhaps the most influential figure in the modern conception of counseling, from a difficulty that a person experiences in communicating first to himself, then to the others, his own visceral and deep emotional reactions connected to a certain situation perceived as being problematic. This paper aims to examine how a particular counseling relationship may reduce this uncertainty. This can be proved by reinterpreting the counseling relationship in the light of the epistemology of complex dynamic systems and of Sander’s psychoanalytic approach inspired by this and by highlighting the educational implications.