Psycho-decorating: What homes reveal about people

by Margaret H. Harmon

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671229516
• ISBN13: 9780671229511
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Wyden Books
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 1.67 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Deserted dunes become cafes in the mirage of their search for truth.

"Psycho-Decorating" (1977), by American psychologist Margaret H. Harmon, M.A., is a 229 page book that showcases the technique of ascertaining a person's motivation and attitudes by the way they decorate their home. It's backed by research, involving a hands-on, 127 question "Personal Decorating Inventory," in which each response represents one or more of 20 psychological trends. The personalities and homes of 100 women (no men?) from diverse backgrounds and preferences were used, followed by an analysis. Stats and research are described at the conclusion of her book, bereft of an index. However, there are illustrations, some in color, as well as pertinent comic strips. Harmon starts by saying that people "project," or thematically create, in a decor a reflection of something latent and intrinsic in their personality. She compares this to the Rorschach psychodiagnostic inkblot test, wherein what a person sees in a blob indicates how they psychologically view their world. Also, she adds, how somebody would, for instance, create a sketch of a person, says much about how they look at them and what type of personality they, the drawer, has. The author attests that homes can don masks. Ones that don't are "All-Together" homes, where everything is purposefully integrated--like the personality of the householder. This may demonstrate good taste, whereby Harmon espouses a standard, based on congruence (see Carl Rogers), and she says "...unity will run through the rooms, and...reflect the occupant's personality...related to...function...." A home's centrepiece--the living room, can reflect these personality types: achievement-oriented, deferent, dominant, exhibitionistic, friendly, and sexually oriented. But each room and what it contains beholds a story and makes an impression, hiding or displaying a trait. This would entail everything from coffee tables, which can be a shield making a statement about identity, to windows, which can exhibit one's image to the world and how they relate to it. Harmon affirms that decor can transmit messages which are therapeutic, in that they restructure one's personality. She mentions the work of American psychologist Robert Sommer, Ph.D., whose "Tight Spaces Hard Architecture and How to Humanize It" (1974) outlines how windowless, underground office spaces can be personalized with pictures and plants, raising morale. Because each person is individual, he remarks, "There is...no way for a designer...or psychologist to intuit someone's space needs without meeting the person...." Harmon has, as asseverated earlier, met such persons. The author emphasizes the significance of colors in decorating, saying said cannot be separated from the types of objects and rooms one finds them, the contact they show and they way they are combined. The latter is what Swiss psychologist Dr. Max Luscher--whom Harmon alludes to--expressed in his book "Color Test" (1969), in which he documents how we can deduce much about a p