The difference between house and home

We highly recommend House as a Mirror of Self by Clare Cooper Marcus.  She uses deep, probing  interviews to understand what people’s homes mean to them.

Archetypes play a prominent role in her analysis.  She also uses imagery and storytelling to get people to open up about their emotions and the unconscious meaning of home.

Basically, everyone’s perception of what a home should be is affected by their own childhood.  Perhaps you want to replicate certain aspects of your childhood home, or if you had a difficult childhood perhaps you need something completely different.

She also discusses how couples negotiate their contrasting beliefs about what a home should represent.  In many cases, couples reach compromises.  With other people, though, these differing ideals create or magnify real problems in the relationship.