"The house is a metaphor for our identity. If our identity lacks welcome, a love without conditions, people have difficulty living with themselves and inhabiting space. It is a short step from the home to the point of sale. The neighbourhood shop is a wonderful thing, it is necessary to have mental spaces for those who go to there. There is a need for relationship and sharing in every sphere.”

Donatella Caprioglio is a university lecturer, child psychotherapist and a ‘living’ psychologist. Home psychology is a new branch of the science and Caprioglio is the forerunner. This is a fascinating subject, useful and necessary to understand and interpret the relationship between a person and their home by attributing a specific meaning to each space. 

A snapshot of a space can highlight needs and requirements never before investigated, obscuring the real relationship between a person and their home. 

What is the relationship between a person and their home?

“Home is therapeutic, it rehabilitates fragile walls. Representing our bodies through rooms, the rooms are symbolic and describe the needs we all have. Cooking expresses the oral - eating, food -, the bathroom emphasises the relationship we have with our body. 

The bedroom highlights the relationship with our sexuality while the living room is the place of welcome, of sharing, even of offering space to the other. It is the calling card of the house, the one you want to show to others. The cupboard is a space where we store our uncertainties. Woe is a house without a cupboard because without it we would be naked in front of others.

How can we interpret the meaning and function of listening?

"Listening means having an empty room for the other, a space to be filled by exchanging views in order to establish a relationship. We need contact through the eyes and the language of speech. In this ever-changing world, people increasingly need listening spaces, if these also have furniture and objects, all the better. The narratives of the houses are beautiful, but the residence must be put in a position to dialogue with those who live there. We need to train people to convey the value of objects, with the ability to talk about the intrinsic meaning of the object itself but also to develop a sense of acceptance. We all need to understand the real meaning of things and affection, and the object, over time, will fulfil this function.” 

The home is therefore a symbolic space, a place of identity that can sometimes make the individual feel uncomfortable. 

"There are people who don’t want to cook because they don’t have a good relationship with food, a problem that may be due to an experience they had in childhood or adolescence. These reactions are symptomatic of the way we invest in the body, because the home is a body that needs to be protected and is an archetype. When a child starts to walk, the first thing they do is get under the table and build a little house because in some way they are already protecting themselves and they can then look at the world with their shoulders protected.”

The home should not be designed by following predetermined patterns or the fashion of the moment, but by understanding the real needs and requirements of those who will occupy these spaces.

"A home must house the pleasures and needs of each member. There are people who are stuck in spaces, who do not know how to live in them, and who perhaps entrust an architect - who plays a central and important role - with building the house, or who live in it indifferently, and that is a pity, because “to inhabit is to live”. Architects must be given the opportunity to understand our needs, because they also fulfil the role of 'therapists'. Listening and dialogue without prejudice are always fundamental.”