House Moving Therapy

Dr Mila Petrova is, apart from a house-moving ninja, a health, social and behavioural sciences researcher, specialising in health systems strengthening, digital health, palliative and end of life care, health in humanitarian and development contexts, and evidence synthesis. She's working as an independent research consultant and continues to be Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, where she's spent most of her academic career. She's also a psychologist, counsellor and 'get unstuck' coach. Mila lives (or, more accurately, is currently living) in Cornwall, England. You can reach her through www.milapetrova.com

INTRODUCTION: Life on the floor

PART I: Beginnings
Ch 1: What makes house moving difficult (1): An explosion of decisions, or how the possessions of a two-bedroom flat can take up the seats of forty-six Boeings
Ch 2: What makes house moving difficult (2): 'Microprojects' on roots to uproot, harm to reverse, good to attempt and bullets to bite
Ch 3: What makes house moving difficult (3): Subversive emotions, but rarely the ones you feared
Ch 4: What makes house moving difficult (4): Defaults that are fat slices of our philosophy of life
Ch 5: How to make it easier? Two things to do that don't need you to lift a finger
Ch 6: Thresholds of pain
Ch 7: Parallel cleaning

PART II: On-Your-Back Things
Ch 8: "When in doubt, wear red". On clothes, the fear of truly shining, and eleven other types of psychological chaos
Ch 9: "Shoes shouldn't hurt". On shoes, lessons we were confident we have really learnt yet continue to repeat, and nine other types of psychological chaos
Ch 10 : "I sing the body electric": Sports gear and inner coxes. On sports equipment, harmful inner conversations, and ten other types of psychological chaos

PART III: House-Bound and Room-Bound Things
Ch 11: Tie yourself to a table. If tables are few, wall colour will do. On furniture, moments when our connection to a place (or a thing, or a person) snaps, and seven other types of psychological chaos
Ch 12: House decoration and painted-over soul cracks. On decoration and art, and traumas from our childhood homes that mark us for life
Ch 13: Liaisons dangereuses. On bedding, towels and other 'huggables', and on the self-defeating associations between a physical and an emotional home
Ch 14: Hunger games. On food, cooking and eating utensils, and almost any form of psychological chaos you can imagine, including fifteen dysfunctional 'eating personality' types

PART IV: Boundary-Crossing Things
Ch 15: Your amazing technicolour dreamhouse and the taken-for-granted. On electrics and electronics, the unglamorous essential ingredient of success and happiness they jeopardise, and five other types of psychological chaos
Ch 16: Do It Yourself. Nevermore. On DIY equipment, culturally inherited beliefs about what it means to be a true man or woman, and three other types of psychological chaos
Ch 17: You are not just a number. On paperwork and the glorious visions we have (had) for our lives v. the lacklustre of the everyday
Ch 18: Home in a bottle of face wash. On cosmetics, guilty pleasures and blindingly obvious things that took you decades to see
Ch 19: The books of life. On books and lives that need saving
Ch 20: The dark bronze envelope. On sentimental items and myths of letting go

PART V: Final Things
Ch 21: Boxing it. On boxes, suitcases and bags, and the tinge of dissatisfaction at endings that aren't a perfect closure
Ch 22: What makes a true home

Acknowledgements
List of Boxes
Disclaimer