The psychological significance of your purse, phone, and other seemingly ordinary objects

Life is one big Rorschach test, as far as I am concerned. When out in the world I may look like I am shopping or doing chores, but in fact, what I am doing while I do those things is reading ordinary objects as a way to understand  the unconscious aspects of people that I see in line at Trader Joe’s. Going to Costco for me is more like attending one big Sandplay convention, each person’s cart is a story that is so much for than just jumbo size Cheerios and a 48-pack of toilet paper, it is a container symbolizing the opposites—holding they life they have and, also, the life they want to have. Outfits are much the same, how we dress says a lot about our psyches— our sartorial signifiers reveal more about us than we might like them to and certainly more than we are willing to say out loud. Truly, everywhere you go there are symbols that surrounds us that look like mere ordinary objects and choices—ol;y they are more. If I could be known for a quote I might like it to be, ‘there are no small choices only small awarenesses of those choices.” I know it’s not as catchy as “don’t worry be happy” and even less likely to be made into a song by Bobby McFarren.

The question of “what’s in your bag” was a magazine and blogging phenomenon. It was so big that I actually think a psychological paper ought to be written about the meaning of our interest about “what’s in the bag?”. There is, me thinks, a kind of voyeurism and, to some degree, exhibitionism in it. LeAnn Melat wrote a PhD dissertation on “The mythical and psychological meaning of a woman’s purse”. I haven’t read it yet but I wonder if LeAnn might give is insight into why we are so curious about what goes on inside all those purses.

Melat gives us some clues : “Modern women almost always take their valuables and essentials with them in purses when they leave their homes, but psychologically, what are they actually reenacting with such ritualistic consistency? One theory of this hermeneutical discussion is that earlier historical feminine rituals are unconsciously reflected in today’s purse behavior. Because Western culture has devalued and underrated characteristics of the archetypal feminine, the repressed, but not lost, archaic traits of the feminine just may be symbolically stuffed away in the shadowy recesses of the purse, waiting to be reintegrated into feminine consciousness. Hestia was primarily the contained essence of each Greek home, and perhaps the modern purse as a psychic vessel of the feminine is related to this goddess’s archetypal realm. Through the purse’s Hermetic connection, the Hestian vessel is able to leave the home and be carried into the world, even though mythically, Hestia never wanted to leave the protected interior under any condition. Even when Dionysos wanted to be admitted to the Greek Pantheon, Hestia gladly relinquished her royal position because she simply did not want to be out, known, or exposed. In many ways, this act put the Goddess Hestia in the role of the thirteenth fairy, the uninvited, unacknowledged guest. We must ask ourselves when Hestia retired herself from view, what became unrecognized in the essential feminine nature? Through the patriarchy’s steady devaluation of the feminine, the contemporary woman has lost her quintessential, central core, which should be carried inside of her soul, unseen, like Hestia’s ember. Instead, she carries something representative of her sacred nature on the outside, on her shoulder or in her hand, as she leaves home gripping her purse. The authentic feminine essence of the modern her lost powers, an aberrant behavior, which manifests from the patriarchal culture’s pathology. Because her interior world has been so dishonored, today’s woman has extroverted what’s left of her value by carrying her essence in her symbolic sacred container, her purse, in much the same way as she dresses for success by attempting to measure up to the patriarchal values.”

Pamela Poole, writer and blogger , and cofounder of Cowgirl App!,” the app review site that doesn’t smell like Doritos and armpits”, wanted to know the deep and dark secrets of my iPhone. She kindly invited me to share “What is on my iPhone“. Not surprisingly these questions led to some significant psychological insight, which is not surprising as, to my mind, the phone is the Transitional Object of our time. If Freud was alive today I feel sure he would want to analyze his patients phone use ( you can’t imagine how often iPhones come up in session) and he would say, “Sometimes( actually most of the time) a phone is not just a phone.” An iPhone or a Blackberry is not just a phone, rather it is a container loaded with psychological significance. And, I think, that it serves as a kind of long-distance umbilical cord that allows us to feel connected and not-alone, no matter where we are. All you have to do is look at people’s relationship to their phone, and see how it is serves as an ever-present binkey for some, to see what a powerful symbol it it.

I am not going to give away the insights that I uncovered in the interview…as I do hope that you go over to Pamela’ and check it out.  I do warn you that a good part of the interview reveals a good deal of  my shadowy-silly self, as I even admit my most embarrassing app.  Please check out the interview here.

Also, here is a great post about the psychoanalytic symbolism of ordinary objects.