Great idea!
I've been anxiously awaiting this Tarot deck for months now. I would love to participate in your discussion, once I have my hands on it!
I noticed your remark about your father saying "how wonderful your life would be if you finished your PhD." I wonder if your father and my father are mysterious identical twins or something. I dropped out (ran away, fled) from my PhD program after 5 years of dithering on my dissertation, and it took at least a year before my dad stopped hounding me. He even suggested I move back home (and away from my lover of 6 (now 12) years) so he could stand over my shoulder and make sure I wrote it (I'm not kidding).
I haven't seen an image of the Devil card you describe in another post, but it sounds awesome, and I can totally identify with your description of the image. I don't usually think of the Devil representing self-hatred (well, not exclusively), I usually think of it either as immoral, hedonistic, or self-destructive behavior. But obviously fear and hatred are at the center of them all.
I have seen the Moon card, however; it didn't occur to me to consider it as a potentially adulterous rendezvous; rather, to me it made me think of how sex can be mistaken for love and cloud one's judgment (cloudy judgment is my "standard" interpretation for the Moon). Sex can just send you into a dreamworld where reality vanishes and fantasy reigns. I never would have thought of the Moon in an erotic context, and this card strikes me as a great insight.
Well, that's a long enough post, don't you think? I suppose I should go back to working now....