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He gives us shelter, and this is his main function. But the house is also an extension of our body, our personality. By organizing our home, we embody our unconscious drives and instincts.
Faced with any trials, we are convinced that houses and walls help. About the one who behaves inappropriately, we say: “He doesn’t have all the houses …” Stable language formulas reinforce the guesses of psychoanalysis, drawing a parallel between the internal state and what is inside the dwelling.
Parent’s house
Our very first place of dwelling is the mother’s body. Perhaps that is why the parental home is associated with the warmth and affection of the mother, and the world into which we leave it is associated with the demanding and energetic father.
“In early childhood, interfering in our relationship with our mother, the father seems to “take away” her from us, but thereby gives us the opportunity to develop, become independent, grow up,” says psychoanalyst Andrei Rossokhin. — Later, the adult world finally «lures» us out. But we know that we can return home, as in the mother universe, where we will be comfortable and calm.”
This is what makes the parental home the place we need, remember, where we unconsciously aspire to.
However, sometimes we have other feelings for this house. The attitude towards him is influenced by unresolved childhood conflicts, old grievances and unspoken desires. It depends on how the relationship with mother and father developed, whether we will consider this house ours or someone else’s.
“Our perception is also connected with how our parents treated each other, whether it was important for them to make the house calm and comfortable, whether they allowed us to have our own space in childhood,” Andrei Rossokhin continues.
If parents do not forbid a small child to create his own house, hide in “huts” made of chairs and blankets, if they treat the teenager with respect, not allowing themselves, for example, to enter his room without knocking, children develop confidence in the house, a special sense of security and peace. As adults, they will still feel at home in their parental home.
What smells at home
When we enter someone else’s apartment, we immediately smell it. Whether we like it or not, our first reaction is involuntary: “This is not my house.” Just as instantly, we react to the native smell of our home. “For eleven years I did not come to the dacha where I spent my childhood,” says 30-year-old Christina. “And when I opened the door to my room, I felt that it was mine: it still smelled there.”
When moving to a new apartment or renting a dacha for the summer, we first of all try to get rid of the smells that speak of the life of the previous owners: we open windows, remove old wallpaper, wash the walls, establishing an associative link between the new place and the internal image of our house.
“A persistent foreign smell causes unconscious anxiety, anxiety and can cause insomnia and incomprehensible irritation,” says Andrey Rossokhin. “To feel at home, you need to fill the space with smells that we unconsciously associate with a feeling of happiness and peace.”
It doesn’t matter whether you have to regularly fry potatoes, bake pies or arrange bowls with cherry-smelling shavings around the apartment — the main thing is that the new space becomes your own, acquires the aromas of your home.
Walls as the boundaries of personal space
The physical boundaries of our individuality are first of all the shell of our body, and then the walls of the house. They protect us like a second skin. In the event of a break-in or illegal intrusion into an apartment, the home loses its protective function, and we feel fear, bewilderment, and pain. A real shock can occur to someone who perceives the house in which he lives only as his fortress.
“My apartment was robbed and I suffered for several months,” says 40-year-old Inna. “I felt like I was physically desecrated, raped.”
The physical boundaries of our individuality are first of all the shell of our body, and then the walls of the house.
From the point of view of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, “to be, to live and to think” is one and the same process. Perhaps that is why, feeling a threat to our psychological integrity, we often react painfully not only to someone else’s intrusion, but also to noise in the street, water drips on the ceiling, or a guest’s attempt to rearrange a book from one shelf to another.
“At this moment, we can feel anger and even hatred,” Andrey Rossokhin explains, “and feel defenseless, like a child whose parents climbed into a desk drawer and read his personal diary.”
Our behavior is driven not only by conscious goals, but also by unconscious needs. And we equip our house, including in accordance with our unconscious inclinations and innate instincts. “Each space is connected with our internal impulses and needs,” Andrey Rossokhin explains, “because they become the source of our mental energy, direct and encourage our behavior.”
Our vital energy tends to discharge, and this process, from the point of view of psychoanalysis, is associated with the reaction of different parts of the human body. Each room of the dwelling has a certain meaning in the psychoanalytic sense.
The kitchen and dining room are places to meet the oral needs that are associated with the mouth and relate to nutrition. The bathroom and toilet are areas of realization of anal impulses associated with the waste products that leave the body, in other words, with the concepts of dirt and cleanliness. We often keep these places featureless, as if we want to prevent the inevitable pollution. And the bedroom is for the satisfaction of erotic desires, fantasies and dreams, for what we wish to keep secret. In general, the house we have created repeats and supports us.
Where does the unconscious hide?
Like the psyche, our home is filled with the conscious and the unconscious. Once upon a time, houses had attics and cellars where chests and boxes stood. Exploring their contents, the children learned about the history of the family, about the childhood of their parents. They learned to understand the unsaid and seemingly forgotten. Now the role of the guardians of the unconscious is played by cabinets and mezzanines. When we want to forget something, we say «throw it in a distant box.» When we remember a secret, we use the expression «skeleton in the closet.»
The unconscious at home can be handled in different ways. Sometimes he is deleted from the life of the family: the ideal hostess has things in plain sight, everything is under her control, and old things, photographs and letters are most likely thrown away. “This example illustrates the psychoanalytic metaphor of consciousness, which displaces into the unconscious everything that seems unnecessary to it, that interferes,” says Andrey Rossokhin. — The other extreme is a house that is littered with things and papers. The owner does not control life in such a dwelling, the unconscious rules in it.
But more often in our homes there are objects that openly lie on the surface, and what is hidden in boxes or on the mezzanine: diaries, toys, letters related to a past life … “Our memory needs secret spaces,” Andrei Rossokhin continues. — They help to feel that life and home have not only one — superficial — dimension, but also many others. And to feel that life is much deeper than it sometimes seems.
Why do we need a mess
Our attitude to order largely depends on how our relationship with hygiene evolved from the age of one and a half to three years. Parents who taught a child to potty could be strict or indifferently compliant — their behavior, according to Sigmund Freud, affects the formation of character traits: some of us are untidy, wasteful and complaisant, others are neat, stingy and stubborn.
But even a person obsessed with order can leave himself space for «dirt». So, an obvious neat man can unconsciously accumulate newspapers and magazines on the night table, as if trying to save for himself a small corner of freedom.
Also, the habit of disorder does not necessarily mean that a person loves dirt. “A cluttered house is a kind of chaos, perpetual motion, but at the same time a protest against any form of control over us,” says Andrey Rossokhin. — The person seems to declare: if I clean my house, this space will cease to be mine. This behavior most likely indicates a long-standing conflict relationship with an overbearing mother.
When we analyze these relationships, starting to better understand both our parents and ourselves, we become more mature and holistic — and our home becomes just as mature and holistic. A place where we feel like ourselves.