ABSTRACT
Homelessness is experienced as the perpetual endurance of temporary dwelling places, a particular state of mind in which time and space appear to collapse into feelings of terror or abandonment, reflected in borderline states and an inability to be contained either inside or outside dwelling places. Thus, the characteristic occupation of the threshold, in the form of doorways, by homeless people symbolises an inability to make choices, whether with respect to identity or location in space. By refusing to inhabit a material, internal space, homeless people demonstrate, in concrete terms, the lack of an internal world capable of holding their anxieties. Mother’s physical presence is sought in the proximity of the baby’s personal body-space, and her emotional ability to contain anxiety is sought as a taking-in of a good object into the developing internal space of thought and feeling.
