Psychoanalysis and Architecture: The Inside and the Outside

This book explores how psychoanalysis and architecture can enhance and increase the chances of mental 'containment', while also fostering exchange between inside and outside.

The way in which psychoanalysts take care of mental suffering, and the way in which architects and city planners assess the environment, are grounded in a shared concern with the notion of 'dwelling'. It is a matter of fact that dwelling exists in a complex context comprised of both biological need and symbolic function. Psychoanalysis and architecture can work together in both thinking about and designing not only our homes but also the analyst’s consulting rooms and, more generally, our therapy places. However, this is possible only if they renounce the current limited and restrictive model of this interaction, and propose one more that is more in harmony with the questions and situations that clients themselves pose.

Creating sustainable and integrative relationships with the buildings in which we inhabit everyday - whether they are our houses, public buildings (such as schools and prisons), or therapeutic spaces (hospitals, clinics, and consulting rooms) - can be a measure both of the degree of the advancement of a society and of the quality of its institutions.