What does home mean to you?
I've pondered over this time and time again. What makes a home? What is it about the four corners of a private room, apartment or house that occupies such a large space in our psyche. I can't quite put my finger on it but there is an inherent quality about our home-lives which reveal so much of who we are.
Our home lives are important; I know that much. As much as we seek life outside, we always return at the end of the day, or week. How does your home feel? Is it safe and warm? Do the walls welcome you with open arms?
I'm fascinated by how we make our spaces our own. It seems to be almost a universal concept, personalisation. You see it in our draw to architecture, and the ever growing obsession with interior design. Why? There is a line where four walls end and our space evolves into an extension of ourselves. A mirror of how we take care of ourselves. A glimpse into your inner-most world for those lucky enough to enter.
An artist friend shared an article quote that stuck with her during her studies, on the Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction;
I particularly liked the metaphor of home as 'a larger kind of pouch, a container for people'.
I researched this subject and came across some interesting essays, particularly from psychotherapists. Brian Collinson, a registered psychotherapist and jungian analyst contemplated that, 'on an unconscious level, our massive preoccupation with homes and real estate might be a reflection of a great concern about our individual selves, and feeling secure in our own being...is our "inner house" on a secure foundation? For a sense of security, meaning and vocation we need a house firmly founded on a deep awareness of who we actually, subjectively are...Here, holding on to ourselves, becomes a matter of vital importance.'
Gaston Bechelard, a French thinker who influenced architects, social thinkers and
psychologists did not view the house as 'abstract', but a place which presents 'how we take root', day after day, in a 'corner of the world'. The house is home to the 'important, lived inner reality of our lives where we are intimate with ourselves and others.
"Objects in the home are not dead, soulless things: for us, they're full of our experience of them accumulated over time, and full of rich meaning."
Dr Clare Cooper, lecturer of Psychology explores Jung's theories of dreams, where houses are invested with human qualities in her essay 'The House as Symbol of the Self. I was captivated by the physical evolution of Jung's physical home in line with the evolution of his own 'evolving and maturing psyche'; a whole tower constructed subconsciously manifesting the self. Only in hindsight, did all the parts join together to emulate a symbol of his psychic wholeness in old age.
Perhaps most striking to me was Cooper's delve into the work of Harold Searles, a pioneer of psychiatric medicine specialising in psychoanalytic treatments of schizophrenia. After a long career working with schizophrenics. Searles noted:
'It seems to me that, in our culture, a conscious ignoring of the psychological importance of the nonhuman environment exists simultaneously with a (largely unconscious) over-dependance upon that environment.
"I believe that the actual importance of that environment to the individual is so great that he dare not recognise it.'
Unconsciously it is felt, I believe, to be not only an intensely important conglomeration of things outside the self, but also a large and integral part of the self... Perhaps it is the so-called normal adult who, having been socialised to regard self and environment as separate and totally different, is most out of touch with the essential reality of oneness with the environment.
My research hasn't left a definitive conclusion; just more confirmation the many faces of our homes spaces; an extension of self, a mirror, a manifestation, oneness. It gives me comfort that when I am deliberating over what art print to display, it is not merely a frivolous preoccupation, but a very human response likely founded on something much more innate.
References:
The Carrier Bag Theory (1986) - Ursula K. Leguin
Symbolism of Home - The Journey to Our Inner House (P.1)(2017) - Brian Collinson https://www.briancollinson.ca/index.php/2017/08/symbolism-of-home-the-journey-to-our-inner-house-1.html
Home as Symbol of the Self (1974) - Clare Cooper https://arch3711.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/cooper_hseassymofself.pdf
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