Home, Longing, and Spirit Upon the Face of the Abyss

Abstract

The authors explore how language opens the space of meaning of the concept of “home,” thereby enabling the unfolding of a primal infrastructure for a discourse about its complex essence. The interplay between house and home stands for the oscillation between the open, welcoming qualities of a home and the protecting, separating ones of a house. A withdrawal from that oscillation may create an abyss: that of alienation and estrangement, of chaos and perversion. It is argued that spirit alone can hover upon this abyss, and form the possibility of connecting where separation prevails, of naming where blurring spreads. We as humans, a nation, therapists, seek the restoration of that motion between life within our walled selfhood and the possibility of going beyond it into a personal and interpersonal existence; we seek the position of “being-given-to” that would restore the spirit, and seek the spirit that would restore a state of “being-given-to.” The authors attempt to explore the issue of people’s longing to stay where they belong, their attachment to their homes, however unsafe these are. A clinical vignette aims at characterizing the therapeutic presence required for restoring patient’s ability to move from a rigidly sealed life dictated by the shadow of an object imprinted in her soul, into living her selfhood as it could have been, had her life conditions allowed her development according to her nuclear self.