How to Use Interior Design to Create a Healing Space

There’s a just-so aura of warmth and ease that emanates from the professional spaces we visit to unpack our feelings, both in real life and Hollywood’s versions of real life — think of the iconic, curved wood paneling and creamy vintage area rug, for example, in the fictional analyst Dr. Melfi’s office in The Sopranos. That’s no accident: Sigmund Freud himself advised fellow practitioners to think about their spaces in terms of how those spaces made their patients feel. “Flowers are restful to look at,” he once said. “They have neither emotions nor conflicts."

Tulsa designer Jill Croka has a rare skill set for cultivating healing spaces. She’s got a background in psychotherapy, and she now uses her expertise to foster comfort and confidence in non-clinical settings. What’s useful in therapists' offices can be therapeutic in our own homes — and Jill’s design work and the research that supports it are proof. Follow along for a look at some of her loveliest residential projects — and to put elements of their design to work in your rooms.

Study after study has demonstrated that visual exposure to nature can increase our positive emotions, enhance our attention and even bolster our problem-solving abilities. The simplest way to reap those benefits, if you’re lucky enough to have access to a view like this one, is to get out of the way. “The black wall covering has an embossed crocodile pattern and is meant to have interest and not just a wall separating the cabinets and the window,” Jill explains. “Although I wanted the wall covering to be interesting, the desire was to make your eye travel outside, so the wall covering recedes.”

When it comes to arranging and displaying books and curios we already own, focusing edits around a few key items can make all the difference. According to research from an urban planning expert and an environmental psychologist who analyzed psychotherapists’ offices, potential therapy patients prefer spaces that are soft, personalized and orderly. That principle applies when it’s time to arrange built-in shelves like these: a well-curated pastel color palette, minimalistic arrangements and evocative pieces that suggest without shouting the homeowner’s personality add up to a harmonious vignette.

“The architecture of this house is very linear," says Jill. "I wanted to use a light that was a juxtaposition to all the severity of the lines."

“The glow of the light is very soothing.”

That soothing glow, in turn, can calm us down as we make choices. Consumer research has shown that extremely bright light can activate our “hot” emotional system and spike our responses to aggression, sexiness, even spicy foods. Turning ambient light down, in turn, can reduce the emotionality of our decision-making.