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What if our housing reflects, whether we like it or not, our ideal of well-being, our image of pleasure? Happiness researcher psychiatrist Christophe André looked at our homes from his own perspective.
Christoph Andre (Christophe Andre) – psychotherapist and psychiatrist, author of many books, including “Imperfect, free and happy” (“Imparfaits, libres et heureux”, Odile Jacob, 2006) and “On the art of happiness” (“De l’art du bonheur”, L’Iconoclaste, 2006).
What is the relationship between our housing and our ability to be happy? “Unclouded happiness within the walls of a luxurious home” is just a simple cliché in the spirit of the TV series, but the relationship between our inner well-being and our home certainly exists. Yes, no architectural beauties or design delights will be enough for us to find peace of mind. Even the most exquisite architecture sometimes does less for us than, say, an afternoon nap or an aspirin at the right moment. But nevertheless: studies of human well-being describe the image of a home in which we can spend our days happily and serenely *.
Shelter and shelter
Home as a space for happiness is not a new image. Even in Antiquity, the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus spoke about the conditions necessary and sufficient for a happy life: freedom, food, friends … and a roof over your head to enjoy it all. The need to feel safe somewhere comes from the history of the human race: we are fragile animals, we have neither a shell nor a shell. We cannot be on guard all the time, defenseless against attack, cold, rain – we need shelter. Remember how nice it is to return home on cold winter evenings, windy and dark. About the happiness of listening to the sound of rain, hiding in the warmth of your own bed. This deep need for a safe space that shields us from the elements and predators explains why the robbery of our home is especially traumatic for us: it is a desecration of our psychological fortress, the destruction of the very foundations of our security.
Place of communication
Johann Wolfgang Goethe believed that there is no worse torture than loneliness in paradise. Is it possible to feel completely happy in the house of your dreams if you are completely alone in it? A shelter that protects us from the weather will become a home where we can feel happy only if it is a place to meet and socialize with friends and loved ones. Psychologists often hear stories of nostalgia that does not leave parents in an empty nest – a house from which grown children scattered.
Takeoff area
But the house was made to be abandoned. The space where we feel happy is at the same time the point from which we begin to discover the world for ourselves. Research on the psychology of attachment reminds us that a person is only then successful – and happy! – moves through life when he has reliable rears. As the French writer Henry de Montherlant said: “The hearth should not be a place where we live, but a place where we return.” Who does not know the feeling of happiness from returning home after a vacation or a long journey! And how emotionally we become attached to the dacha, where we spent the summer with the whole family! Any nomad needs a place to take a breath between two journeys… This inhalation and exhalation – to leave and find again – gives special strength to our happiness: there is a place in the world that we love and which, it seems to us, also loves us and keeps us…
Embodiment of ideals
“HOME ENVIRONMENT EXPRESSES OUR WAY TO CREATE OUR HAPPINESS.”
And finally, we are so attached to the house because it embodies our image of well-being. It expresses our ideas about a happy existence: reliable or open to all winds; dead or ringing with voices; simple and spacious or filled with all sorts of things… Home furnishings betray our way of creating happiness. Who did not feel curiosity, going to visit someone for the first time: how are they doing there? We have a presentiment: when we see the house of our acquaintances, we learn a lot about them. My doctor friends confirm that it is easier for them to understand how to help a patient by visiting him at home. It is a pity that psychotherapists rarely make such visits …
Unconscious influence
Countless connections connect our homes and our ideas of happiness. Meanwhile, we don’t pay attention to it so often … Perhaps we just need to open our eyes wider? Are you at home now? Then put down the magazine and look around. Walk around the room. Look at everything that you love, that in your home makes you happy, resonates with your heart: shapes, colors, the way the light from a lamp falls, or windows with a familiar landscape. Recall the history of that shelf or the knick-knacks on it; feel this everyday atmosphere that shapes you, acting powerfully, but imperceptibly. And smile: you are at home …
* A. Botton “The Architecture of Happiness”. Mercury of France, 2007.
About it
- Michael Argyle “The Psychology of Happiness” Peter, 2006.
- Karen Kingston Feng Shui. Harmony in your home, Transpersonal Institute Publishing, 2003.