Customer Reviews

House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wish my husband and I had read this book before we began designing our new home instead of after the plans were done. I would have understood why the whole process was making me feel angry and negated, he would have understood why he was not more excited about the whole design process. We now understand why we haven't felt the nesting instinct in our present home and what unfufilled yearnings we brought to every place we have lived in alone and together. This book should be required reading for architects and interior designers and builders. It would change the questions they asked their clients and move all toward a more fulfilling experience. Instead of asking how many rooms do you need and how big should they be, a designer could help clients explore what they found nurturing in former homes and what emotional needs could be met in the design of their new spaces. Very Jungian, but easy to use with worksheets for exploring ideas on your own. The book brought tears to our eyes and answers to our unasked questions. I'm almost ready to dump the current plans and start all over again with new excitment and optomism.

I found this book when I was undergoing my own deep personal transformation ten years ago. It helped me understand my own relationship to the homes I had created for clients and my self. As an interior designer and a contractor it is important to understand the calling of the client's psyche and meet those needs. There is so much focus now on the spiritual aspects of one's home, and feng shui does offer up its own insights, but using this book as a primer for understanding what is calling to you will lead you to a different more integrated understanding. A carpenter builds a house, the family makes it a home. Clare gives the reader a path to understanding this complex yet simple process. The book is easy to read and offers many good exercises to dialog with the inner self. I highly recommend it to designers and psychologist alike.

This reads more like a textbook for an interior design course. It has little to do with the psychology of your own choice of home/setting. Like another reviewer said, the idea seemed fascinating, but the book disappoints right away, if not for the setup alone; the author overuses the same phrases and form to setup her next example. It is as though this were her thesis for design school. It could also pass for a really good new age book, that's how problem-centered it is. If you have watched "Designing for the Sexes" on HGTV, you have read this book. This book is only interesting and appropriate for interior designers, not for anyone seeking insight into our needs and choices when it comes to home.

An interesting and comprehensive exploration of the relationship that develops between some people and their homes -- one of my favorite topics. This book confirmed some beliefs I already held and gave me new ideas to think about.

Stuck in an expensive house I hated for over 10 years, this book was the beginning of my journey to liberation and escape! It seemed so attractive, so funky, so adorable... at first. But eventually our Mansard Victorian was driving me crazy. Reading the anecdotes in this book, going through it chapter by chapter and doing the exercises taught me for the first time why I felt so uncomfortable there, and allowed me to reconfigure the space to make it more tolerable. I set up two rooms inside the house exactly the way I wanted, focused my attention on the garden, and worked out a plan to organize the rest so it at least would not eat our stuff.

Once our child was born, the small rooms on three different floors, his toys and supplies divided throughout the house, started to drive me crazy again. So, back to the book we went. This time, I insisted that my husband work through it, too, so he could try to discover why he was clutching on to the house so tightly. By the time he was done, he knew, and we could finally leave. After a year-long stint in a simple rented apartment, we are about to move into a medium-sized Colonial mostly on one floor, with generous-sized rooms and a huge garden.

If your house does not feel like home, you need this book. If your house is driving you bats, you need this book. Even if you can't move, you'll get the tools you need to save your sanity and possibly your marriage.

This book is a treasure. Stimulates great conversation with friends. Helps you consider your home and its meaning to you, past and present in a wonderful way. I'm still doing the exercises and getting my house in order!

This book is full of interesting and important ideas about how where we live affects how we are. I have read it many times over a long period of time - it is always fascinating and relevant to 'where' I am.

The lights go on all over my house. I realized the first time I read it that my house was built the same year my mother was born. I would not have thought of it on my own. It is a sure way to trigger topics for memoir writing and journal entries too.

My book club likes it because it suggests engaging activities that we can do together in our group.

House as a mirror of self has been an important book to me already and I'm only half finished reading it. It's taking me a while to complete because it's stimulating questions for me about my house and me. Insights gained are helping me understand where I am in my life at the moment and what I want to do to move forward.

As a designer with a background in architecture, and now as a professional coach with an emphasis in environmental psychology, I found this book interesting and definitely worth exploring. I bought this book years ago and have now read it several times, gleaning new information each time. There are few books written on this subject that synthesize a range of ideas the way this book does. Considering the building industry is as large as it is and people spend as much time and money on their homes as they do, I think this book should be required reading for all architects and designers. Having done an inordinate amount of research on this subject, I Thank You, Clare Cooper Marcus, for an original book that strongly resonates with me and encourages readers to look deeper at our relationship with self and all we surround ourselves with.

I loved this book for its ordinariness with a subject that can be extraordinary and difficult to grasp at times. The writings of Clare Cooper Marcus helped define and hone many inner qualities in a very immediate manner. This book is like having a compassionate friend sitting with me.