"Tarot + Therapeutic Practice?"

Are there any therapists out there who use Tarot in their therapeutic practice?

- Other than our much loved "here's your reading" thing - which is of-course, a form of counselling therapy imo.

Perhaps, psychotherapists using the card imagery much as one might use toys - or art drawing to aid in the clients expression?
Or Spiritual/energetic healers using cards to 'bolster the aura' in some way - or help set a tone or helpful 'thought pattern' in process?

I'd love to hear from you all if you feel able to share how you do this.

I may occasionally use the Tarot in a simple exercise for my body therapy clients like this:
(exercise is inspired by Andy Matzner's 'The Tarot Activity Book - a collection of creative and therapeutic ideas for the cards').
1) Give the client a selection of cards to look at and ask them to choose the one they most like - and tell me why.
2) From their answer, work with them to formulate a personal affirmation/meditation that they can take away with them to use.

You might want to read a very interesting book called "Jung and Tarot" by Sallie Nichols. It covers the area more thoroughly than I can here.

Briefly, yes. Counsellors use it for putting people at ease with identifying their deeper issues. I know someone who uses some of the more enigmatic cards in a very modern deck in pretty much the same way a more orthodox clinician might use the Rorsasch Test cards.

Tarot is very good for opening an intimate conversation, and it is only once you have cracked that barrier and entered into a client's inner world that you are able to offer them meaningful clinical help.

Then again, orthopaedic surgeons might like to use a material other than Tarot cards to replace a hip-joint.

"Tarot + Therapeutic Practice"

nisaba said:

You might want to read a very interesting book called "Jung and Tarot" by Sallie Nichols. It covers the area more thoroughly than I can here.

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Great! That's now on my reading list - thanks.

nisaba said:

Then again, orthopaedic surgeons might like to use a material other than Tarot cards to replace a hip-joint.

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You make me laugh nisaba.

There's a book I'm reading right now called Tarot and Psychology: Spectrums of Possibility by Arthur Rosengarten. It's about how therapists can use tarot in their practice. I haven't finished the book yet, but it's had some interesting ideas so far.

"Tarot therapy book"

moon_light said:

There's a book I'm reading right now called Tarot and Psychology: Spectrums of Possibility by Arthur Rosengarten. It's about how therapists can use tarot in their practice. I haven't finished the book yet, but it's had some interesting ideas so far.

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Thanks moon_light, I shall now be receiving this as an Xmas present.

I know of trained professional therapists who find tarot very useful in their practice. I do have major issues with tarot readers who decide they are as good at therapy as those who have trained properly.

There have been a few posts here - way back now - by people who almost said they were planning to set up as "tarot therapists" - without having had any therapeutic training, as well as someone who asked if there were a "short on line free therapy course" that they could take, so that they could set up in this way. I think that is scary - and so I wanted to mention it. Therapists - whether they use cards or not - MUST be properly trained. Such a trained therapist who uses cards alongside that training gets my vote.

gregory said:

I know of trained professional therapists who find tarot very useful in their practice. I do have major issues with tarot readers who decide they are as good at therapy as those who have trained properly.

There have been a few posts here - way back now - by people who almost said they were planning to set up as "tarot therapists" - without having had any therapeutic training, as well as someone who asked if there were a "short on line free therapy course" that they could take, so that they could set up in this way. I think that is scary - and so I wanted to mention it. Therapists - whether they use cards or not - MUST be properly trained. Such a trained therapist who uses cards alongside that training gets my vote.

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I absolutely agree with gregory. If you're not trained by an accredited college, graduating with a diploma, don't try to set up practice as a "therapist". Tarot is a tool that therapists can use successfully, but only if their diploma doesn't come from the Universal Life Church or somewhere like that.

"Tarot in therapy"

gregory said:

...There have been a few posts here - way back now - by people who almost said they were planning to set up as "tarot therapists" - without having had any therapeutic training... as well as someone who asked if there were a "short on line free therapy course" that they could take, so that they could set up in this way.

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OMGS! - Perfect recipe for disaster.
Heaven save us all from those "short course" things (they exist in my profession too - quite frightening).
I have years of body therapy training (plus I'm unlikely to stop adding to it anytime soon). And I'm partial to learning more of how Tarot is used therapeutically (the study of psychotherapy is for another lifetime now - in addition to other things - I have quite enough on my plate presently) - because I'm interested in all modalities therapeutic, especially ones that I have affinity with.

Thankyou for highlighting this very important point here gregory.

I can see where you could incorporate Tarot into your physical therapy work. I think it could work quite well in more than one way. Healing touch and gaining insights through the cards could go well together I think.

"Tarot with bodywork"

Grizabella said:

I can see where you could incorporate Tarot into your physical therapy work. I think it could work quite well in more than one way. Healing touch and gaining insights through the cards could go well together I think.

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Have you any suggestions Grizabella? - i.e could you spell it out please?
I do use them here and there - when I dare - like the exercise I described in my first post here on opening this thread. But ofcourse my hesitancy comes from - tadaaa - not having any in-depth counselling/psychotherapy training etc. to back up my ideas of how working with images works. ...or do you mean adding a Tarot reading? Which I have now worked out how to do at the end of the thread "Here's why I don't read" (got some great book suggestions from there too for my personal growth. I'm very pleased with everyone's input).