Abstract: A quantum mechanical picture is presented to describe the behavior of confined spinons in a variety of S=1/2 chains. The confinement is due to dimerization and frustration and it manifests itself as a nonlinear potential , centered at chain ends ( ) or produced by modulation kinks (b 1). The calculation extends to weak or zero frustration some previous ideas valid for spinons in strongly frustrated spin chains. The local magnetization patterns of the confined spinons are calculated. A (minimum) enhancement of the local moments of about 11/3 over a single S=1/2 is found. Estimates for excitation energies and binding lengths are obtained.