Decorators' Pitch: Let's
Put You On The Couch

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

March 10, 2005 -- Rene and Brian Ward have some marital issues: They both work long hours and have little time together. He likes hunting and fishing. She prefers gardening and flowers. To work things out, the couple met with a professional who had some helpful suggestions, such as keeping Mr. Ward's stuffed wild boar head out of the living room.

"She's like our marriage counselor," says Mrs. Ward. Except she isn't -- the professional in question is a $90-an-hour interior decorator, Cathy Whitlock, who debriefed the Nashville, Tenn., couple about their sleeping habits and bathroom schedules before coming up with a renovation plan.

To upgrade their image and help boost fees, a small but growing number of interior decorators are restyling themselves as "design therapists." The marketing pitch: We'll find you the perfect Biedermeier cabinet, match paint chips to fabrics -- and examine your childhood traumas in the bargain.

Decorator Kelly Hoppen asks clients to fill out a 50-page-plus survey with questions ranging from if they eat in bed to where they shave. In Los Angeles, designers Susan Painter and Constance Forrest won't hang a curtain before putting clients through "clinical relaxation exercises" to trigger early childhood memories. Master bath need an overhaul? A new book recommends homeowners consider their "environmental biographies" before replacing so much as a single tile.

Not everyone is prepared to get on the couch before reupholstering it. Barry and Sheryl Schwartz (he's Calvin Klein's former business partner) recently hired the London-based Ms. Hoppen to redecorate their 24,000-square-foot farmhouse in Westchester County, N.Y. Mrs. Schwartz says she and her husband were surprised when the decorator started asking questions such as "Are you generally hot or cold" and "How adventurous are you in bed?"

Yet after some thought, the couple concluded all the probing was a good idea. It even helped produce some insightful touches, such as a dining table in the master bedroom. "We can have breakfast or dinner in the bedroom," says Mrs. Schwartz, adding that she likes the fact that Ms. Hoppen is "big on karma."

Decorators are looking for new ways of making money in part because the traditional way of charging clients -- a 20% to 40% markup on furnishings bought from showrooms -- is becoming a harder sell. These days, homeowners have more access to furniture at discounted or nearly-wholesale prices, whether via the Internet or at big-box retailers. There is also more competition between decorators, as membership in the American Society of Interior Designers hit a record high of 35,000 this year. Meanwhile, annual income in the field has been flat, at about $40,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Let's Talk: Rene Ward, a financial adviser in Nashville, Tenn., gets advice from her interior designer, Cathy Whitlock.

Of course, client hand-holding has long been part of a decorator's job, with sitting through tales of adultery, business problems and ungrateful children considered all in a day's work. The profession took a slightly more spiritual turn during the 1990s, when designers moved to arranging rooms according to Chinese feng shui principles.

Now the industry is turning toward true armchair analysis -- or at least hefty, Jungian-style consultation fees. Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, a New York-based designer who started his practice in 2001, requires a $450 two-hour therapy consultation session before he'll work with a client on more mundane issues like lighting and crown moldings. The first part of the meeting is devoted to personal likes (favorite movie stars, restaurants); the second part to the past; and the third deals with aspirations and answering questions like "Who would you consider a role model and why?" With the clock ticking at $150 an hour, Mr. Gillingham-Ryan will follow up that meeting with design ideas.

What women want: The Wards' bedroom reflects more of Mrs. Ward's taste.

Then there's Toby Israel, the author of the "environmental biography" book. A designer in Princeton, N.J., with a Ph.D. in environmental psychology, Ms. Israel charges about $150 an hour for therapy sessions. She says some clients sign up for as many as 10 sessions where they participate in exercises such as making a "family tree" connected by all the houses they've lived in instead of relatives. (That's supposed to remind them of what comforted them about past homes.) Some clients request follow-up consultations to tackle décor issues. "The trick is to find people who are attuned to what you are doing," Ms. Israel says. "Some people aren't going to be the least bit interested."

Indeed, some aren't. "I don't think you have to go back to whether or not you hated the color of your first room," says Bunny Williams, a New York interior designer. Ms. Williams says she does believe psychology plays a role in decorating, and she will examine clients' history if they insist. But, she adds: "Am I going to ask a client to psychoanalyze for two meetings? No."

Studious: Brian Ward's hunting mounts ended up in his private study.

Still, there are clients like Gail Siggelakis who appreciate the help. A teacher in Robbinsville, N.J., Ms. Siggelakis describes herself as "in pain" and "anxious" about making the right décor decisions for her newly built home. After working with Ms. Israel and getting a list of ideas, Ms. Siggelakis tacked up the decorator's suggested plan in her master bedroom closet. (Among the suggestions: a living room for Mr. Siggelakis and a meditation room for Mrs. Siggelakis.) For months, Mrs. Siggelakis consulted the plan daily. "It was a mantra," she says. "I could read it and it would inspire me."

Design psychologists say that décor and psyche go together like damask and silk, and that exploring clients' pasts should be part of the home-decorating process. What's more, many designers feel that the shopping-pal role has gotten stale and that interior design deserves to be a more serious, intellectual discipline, not so different from architecture.

Picking up on the idea, interior-design schools are encouraging students to enroll in more psych classes. In the past few years, the design programs at UCLA and George Washington University have both added psychology courses to their curricula; this fall, the Parsons School of Design is planning to add two environmental psychologists to participate in core classes. "It's time that interior design claimed its history," says Ms. Caan, the interior-design program's director.

Of course, sometimes the results are as drawn-out as the on-the-couch kind of analysis. It was July 2004 when Ronit Davidyan hired the design psychologists Ms. Painter and Ms. Forrest to overhaul her Santa Monica, Calif., house. So far, Ms. Davidyan and her husband are still in the "therapeutic" phase of the project, meeting the designers on occasional weekends for therapy-intense interviews, collage-making and the five-objects test.

But things are looking up. The couple has been able to put more time aside for the project, and Ms. Painter and Ms. Forrest have started reviewing the results of the exercises. Soon, the designing will begin, though Mrs. Davidyan, a psychotherapist herself, is already missing the therapy. "We had so much fun doing the exercises we want to do it weekly now," Ms. Davidyan says.

Corrections & Amplifications:

Shashi Caan is the chair of the interior-design program at Parsons School of Design in New York. This article incorrectly gave Ms. Caan's title as director of the interior-design program.

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