ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the meaning of home as a physical place where one resides as well as an inner psychological construct—a term coined by the author as the Home Within—that is born out of our internalized experiences of our childhood homes and ultimately shapes our values, beliefs and individual identities as adults. The author cites works by psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott and novelists Pico Iyer and André Aciman to lend depth and personal perspectives to her thesis. Two clinical treatment vignettes are included to illustrate how patients can gain an understanding of their Home Within and how this self-awareness makes it possible for them to modify problematic aspects of it that are interfering with the challenges they face.
