Design on My Mind

Psychology as design tool.

Toby Israel Ph.D.

Downsizing Home, Upsizing Love

On our life-journey, our home can help us become our best selves.

Metaphoria by Design

Architecture and interior design can use storytelling metaphors to elicit emotions and thus be transformative in relation to our own journeys.

Back to School: Therapists Design for Life

In the hands of clinical psychologists, Design Psychology can be a “design therapy” that (like art therapy) helps clients move more healthily along their life journey.

Our Secret Life in Bathrooms

The bathroom can conjure up images of birth, of the beginning, of water which we must cross, of water in which we may be purified: The bathroom of the hero/ine's journey.

Nurture the Phoenix

Can art + environment + psychology = a formula for our phoenix to rise from the ashes?

11/9: Envision Light

Envision your spirit being reborn out of a world of deep darkness.

Say It Forward: Presidential Debates and Verbal Abuse

The power to keep the peace—not just abroad but within our own borders—starts with respectful interactions within our own families and communities.

On 'The Road' to Home in North Central Florida

We can experience epiphany about the importance of transcendent places, art and stories

Keep Calm and Carry On with Design Psychology

Are you nervous when going to public places these days?

Women by Design: Transforming Home, Transforming Self

Secrets produce an often invisible but lasting trail of debris.

Women by Design, Transforming Home, Transforming Self

A patchwork of life experiences lies just beneath the surface of our outdoor and indoor places. Do you want to reveal this rich tapestry of life?

Women by Design: Transforming Home, Transforming Self

Inevitably being 'at home' means abiding within yourself

Women by Design: Transforming Home, Transforming Self

Women can express and transform their psychic and home interiors

Women by Design: Transforming Home, Transforming Self

Use Design Psychology to create homes that support women's growth and change

My Design Psychology Career: 'Art + Science' = True Love

Sculpting beautiful, profoundly meaningful places that allow us to transcend

A Forest of Design Ideas From Planetree

In this cyber-crazed world, is it a good thing for patients to have Internet access or should we be creating an 'Oasis by Design' that shields them from outside distraction?

Postcard From the Edge: Special Delivery for Women

Woman facing major life transitions can create (or visit!) spaces that support their positive growth and change.

Maggie's by Design: A Blueprint for Cancer Care Centers

Can we offer a new type of "Design Therapy?"

Think Tangerine Trees (Not Pink) for Breast Cancer Centers

A new idea in patient-centered design and art therapy? Through Design Psychology techniques you can envision and create nurturing places for yourself or your community. In her workshop "Creating a Healing Oasis," Toby Israel helped the YWCA Princeton Breast Cancer Resource Center take charge of their own space rennovation.

Mourning Dawns Online: Creating Virtual Space for Grief

Bloody nightmares streaming through TV and other media haunt us, yet mass media—especially the Internet, also can help us mourn.

Patient-Centered Hospital Design = People + Place

Is our angst about the physical and psychological importance of hospital design needless?

Healing Consciousness by Design

Can we really measure the healing effects of therapies and design on the evolving soul?

The Road to Wellness: A Journey via Design Psychology

Transcendental Sound, Space & the Healing Lightness of Being

"Urban" "Zen": Are these two words contradictory?

Healing with Imagery: The Brain's Own Natural Bag of Visual Tricks

The Military's Brave New World-Class Hospitals

The Military's Epidaurus Project on Patient-centered Care and Design is soon to be full-born.

Healing Oasis by Design . . . Probing the Mystery

Can the transformative powers of healing oases be carefully studied and applied?

A Healing Home for Santa and Her Helpers

Especially during holiday times, is it possible to create rooms that encourage us to gather, allow us to 'escape,' and may even help heal old wounds?

The Incredible 'Shrinking' Office

Every therapist's space provides the backdrop against which clients' personal dramas will be revealed.  Yet, psychologists receive little, if any, training about how to set an effective stage for the client-practitioner interplay.

Freud's Office: Opium Den or Therapeutic Space?