A way of drawing the different parts of yourself as people who share a house. Nobody in the house is bad. Each one is trying to help, in its own way, with what it knows.
The lantern is Self — not a part, but the you that's there when the parts step back: calm, curious, kind. Tick what feels present and the light reaches further into the house. Drag the lantern to wherever Self is sitting right now.
Inside each part you can also tick which of these are there when you're with that part. That shows as a beam of light from the lantern to it — wider when more is there — and a small number on its card. If what you feel toward a part is something else, like irritation or fear, that's usually another part, and it's worth noting too.
Getting around
Your map stays with you
Nothing is sent anywhere. It lives in this browser on this device. Save file writes a copy you can keep or send to the person you're working with; they open it with Open file and see exactly what changed before bringing anything in — so you can each work on the map in turn without anything being lost.
New map closes the map you have open and clears it from this browser, ready for a fresh one. If there are changes you haven't saved as a file, it offers to save a copy first. A file for a different map always opens on its own, so two people's maps are never mixed together.
On an iPad or phone, open the map from its web address in Safari, then choose Add to Home Screen from the Share menu. It then opens like an app, and the device holds on to your map more reliably. Whatever device you use, save a file now and then — that copy is yours, whatever happens to the browser.
Esc closes panels.
Credits and licence
Who lives here © 2026 Robert Ford, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Use with clients in paid practice is welcome; please don’t sell the tool itself.
House image adapted from Richard Schwartz, ‘Depathologizing the borderline client’, Psychotherapy Networker, May/June 2013. The three-storey layout is my own.