Homelessness. Article by Yulia Vlasova

These are simply my thoughts about homelessness, which began during my first long trip, where I experienced this feeling most strongly, and then I observed people, asked questions, and used material from therapy sessions.

Here's what I got in a highly compressed form.

Homelessness as a chronic emotional experience arises not from frequent moves, such as in military families, as one might superficially assume, but from rejection by the mother's body, especially the womb. The histories of such clients often include stories of unwanted and unexpected pregnancies, parents' thoughts about abortion, and sometimes even attempts to induce one.

Homelessness is always accompanied by increased anxiety as a character trait, so anxiety is often not recognized, but is disguised as other conditions, in particular, increased alertness, and in adolescents – aggressiveness.

One of the characteristic markers of homelessness is the habit of taking food to bed, usually beginning in childhood. "Homeless" people (by this I mean people who feel homeless, as they may have multiple homes) are extremely sensitive to rumors of price increases or a change in the political system: they begin stockpiling. Ambivalence and a fear of spending money are combined with senseless purchases "for future use." A great deal of anxiety arises when renovations are necessary—renovations will distort the existing home, accentuating the internal feeling of loss.

Homeless people have everything they need to survive in their pockets and purses; this is their inherent tendency to take with them everything that might be useful (an umbrella, spare clothes, medicine, a knife, a handkerchief), even in a situation of short absence – to work.

On long trips, people take a lot of things they don't need. It's as if they have a feeling of "not returning" home, so they need to stock up on things. Young children often steal, and research into the reasons for theft will reveal a lack of resources.

Homelessness is a kind of lack of containment ; there's no room to process feelings, hence the anxiety. Homelessness is also a lack of boundaries : it creates a tendency to get caught up in manipulative relationships. For a long time, people don't realize they're being manipulated because, as a rule, manipulators are able to create a sense of "definition" and integrity in the manipulated. With manipulators, homeless people feel more secure for the time being.

In therapy, homeless people fear change, especially change of location. They move from phase to phase through regression, which manifests itself in withdrawal and self-stimulation.

They love reading (and watching) movies about being lost and finding a new home, like "Robinson Crusoe." They feel anxious if the protagonist abandons or loses things or gets lost. Children experience significant anxiety when presented with a "lost" storyline, unable to develop it. For comparison, "a boy got lost, walked down the street, and was found by his parents," "got lost, was found by others," "got lost, was found and eaten"—children develop the storyline. Homeless children are unable to develop the storyline, stopping at the loss phase, and may cry, saying that the protagonist has become alone. (Observations by our psychologist, children aged 4-6). Little homeless children hide, building shelters for one person, as if reconstructing a mother's womb.

Open spaces are uncomfortable, and they tend to limit them. They don't like to go for walks on their own and are poor at exploring new things. They are wary of strangers, become wary very early on, and other people's things can trigger panic. Sometimes it seems as if these people have "exogenous autism." Their mother couldn't help them develop internal boundaries, an internal home, so they have to use external boundaries as internal ones. The home is constructed to soothe, protect, and digest resources. Naturally, no external home can handle intrapsychic work.

In therapy, I work with the archetype of the Wanderer, who doesn't care about having a roof over their head. Accessing this figure within oneself usually significantly reduces the anxiety of homelessness. People become able to live more actively in their environment, utilizing its resources. In the deep field, this is represented as a transition from the state of "homeless, shelterless – I'll disappear" to "homeless – I'll be found." Although here, as in any case, it's only possible to improve, not eliminate. Traumatization occurs too early.

The topic of homelessness became more prominent in Russian consciousness due to the loss of many homes in the 1990s: confiscated for debt, sold, etc. There was fertile ground for this activism, as the wounds of exile and deportation had not yet healed. Incidentally, exile and deportation as punishments are not accepted in all countries. Here we encounter the archetypal theme of Exile, and consequently, the Exile. The Wanderer is a resourceful figure, while the Exile is destructive, although, in the narrative, they perform similar actions.