Neo-liberal policies continue to undermine teacher autonomy. However, there is more at stake here than external political constraints alone; intimate problems of becoming a human subject must also be considered, including susceptibility to forms of control and regulation (Pitt & Phelan, 2005). Drawing on phenomenological interviews with Canadian teachers about autonomy and the work of Julia Kristeva (2009), I explore how neo-liberal policies play on teachers’ “incredible need to believe.” Belief as illusion defends the ego against the anxieties that follow from loss of certainty (endemic to teaching). What is called for is a recognition of the fragility of life in classrooms and a different understanding of belief as condition—as that which can stave off momentarily the disillusionment teachers face that accompanies “the loss of idealization, the impossibility of absolute knowledge” (Farley, 2010, p. 14). References Farley, L. (2010). “The reluctant pilgrim:” Questioning belief after historical loss. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 6-40. Kristeva, J. (2009). This Incredible Need to Believe. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Pitt, A. & Phelan, A. (2005). Paradoxes of autonomy in professional life. Grant proposal funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.