To talk about emotions is fundamentally difficult, both, in our personal lives and as the object of academic contemplation: emotions are transient, unpredictable and complex in their nature, and they are always given subjective significance. These rather negative connotations of emotional constitution looks back on a long tradition in the context of anthropological considerations, mainly because emotions have always been perceived as the opposite of reason or rational thinking. This defensive attitude towards human emotionality can be attributed to this traditional, counter-educational view of emotion and feelings (Huber, 2013; Wulf, 2014). Especially at school emotions are still only taken into consideration, if they deviate from the average, i.e. if they fail to appear or if they exceed a certain level or a supposed standard. This understanding corresponds with current educational policy: the impact of rankings and outcome driven notion of education as well as the emphasis on factual knowledge influences teacher training programs and accordingly school routines (Gieseke, 2007); this mainly rational conception of education, learning and schooling not only neglects the interdependent connection of emotional and cognitive processes, but also counteracts a holistic perspective on education and well-being in schools (Hascher, 2010).

The starting point and theoretical framework of this lecture is that emotional markers, evaluations and patterns can be understood as a necessary precondition of specific processes of perception (e.g. Damasio & Carvalho, 2013; Colombetti, 2014), of learning (and memory) (e.g. Kim & Diamond, 2002; Murphy & Isaacowitz, 2008), of decision making (and educational careers choices) (e.g. Brand, 2008; Arnold & Pachler, 2013), and accordingly, of the transfer and application of knowledge and problem solving competence (e.g. Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; Kubsch, 2014) as well as adaptive social behavior (see e.g. Lieberman, 2007). On this assumption a specific research project, placed at the University of Vienna, aims to clarify, how the professionally guided sensitization of emotionality in transition processes can help students to evaluate and to approach problems and/or situations differently: decisions, problem solving competence and knowledge are no longer seen as purely rational but based on emotional markers and evaluations, understood as the conscious and nonconscious emotional evaluation of mental images, representations and experiences of our own learning and live history (Gieseke, 2007; Damasio, 2010; Huber, 2015). The central research question of this intervention study is, (a) how exactly students can be supported in the best possible way in their educational career choices at the transition from secondary school to tertiary education in particular consideration of emotional evaluations and markers within professional guided workshops, and (b) which are the implications for the design possibilities of educational policies with regard to the transition to higher education.

A special focus of the lecture will be put on the structure, content and procedure of the five consecutive workshops, which are recorded at a specifically equipped observation laboratory. The workshop sessions were conceptualized during a complex pilot study in collaboration with experts of adult education, counselling research, mixed methods research and psychosocial work. The workshop sessions’ content is structured along five interwoven but chronologically separated phases, including different imaginative, projective and group dynamic tools and exercises.

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