From Psychotherapy to Imaginal Therapy: A Journey of Transformation
I want to share my personal journey of transformation which I could title: From burnout to inspiration. As a psychotherapist, I often found myself carrying the heavy burden of responsibility for my client's well-being. This weight contributed significantly to my eventual burnout. It's important to acknowledge that I'm not alone in this experience; burnout is a real hazard for healthcare practitioners, especially during times of heightened crisis and widespread anxiety.
My transition to Imaginal Psychotherapy working with Tarotpy (tarot therapy) has been pivotal in my journey. This approach not only offers healing to clients but also initiates a profound transformation within therapists themselves. With Imaginal Psychotherapy, we enter a natural "flow state" where we can trust the images to guide our sessions, yielding organic and healing responses. Although the client might randomly choose cards from a variety of decks, her layout portrays a cohesive narrative as if it were a carefully scripted storyboard. There seems to be an invisible mastermind at play in organizing these seemingly random images. When we relate to images as living presences, we perceive that the world is not lifeless matter but teeming with intelligence and energy. As a result, each therapy session becomes a sacred space where both the practitioner and the client are inspired and revitalized.
Finding Balance in Stressful Times
In chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
- Carl Jung
People often come into a session in a state of disequilibrium and confusion. Despite feelings of fragmentation, Tarotpy — the layout and images — often reveals that there is inherent order, balance, and stability at the core of one’s being.
When I invite the person to ask inwardly for guidance in creating their Tarotpy layout, the seeker often comes up with a number of cards and shape of the layout that are perfectly ordered and balanced. For example, they might imagine four cards in the shape of a square, three cards in the shape of a pyramid or six cards in the shape of a circle. The unconscious expresses itself in numbers, shapes, and symbols. These geometrical shapes are highly stable and balanced structures.
Linda loved her work and home, and felt very content with her life. To add to her joy, she had recently fallen in love with a man she had known since childhood.
Then, life threw her a curve ball.
She came into our session greatly distressed. Her sister’s live-in boyfriend had suddenly died and left her sister without a place to live, not to speak of the loss of companionship. Linda had invited her sister to stay with her until she could get back on her feet. But Linda was worried. Her sister did not work and suffered from chronic depression. Linda did not want her own needs to be overshadowed or her home life to become chaotic due to her sister’s indeterminate length of stay.
I invited Linda to try Tarotpy for counsel on the issue. She began by focusing inside and received an intuitive message to select three cards and place them in a straight row. I drew the layout as she described it on a piece of paper. Then one by one, she named the placements. When Linda named the left placement “joy,” a phrase came into my mind — “higher consciousness” — and so I added it in parentheses with her permission. (If a strong word or feeling comes to you as a facilitator regarding a placement, write it in parentheses.) She named the middle placement “care for myself” and the final placement “sister.”
Next, she chose the Goddess Tarot deck. I could imagine that it might be indicative of her desire to be treated like a queen. She shuffled the deck and randomly picked three cards to represent each placement on the layout. Linda began turning over her cards. The particular images Linda had drawn correlated strongly with her query and her personal life.
(HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS)
I asked Linda which image first attracted her attention and she indicated the Nine of Swords on the right side. Looking at this card, Linda immediately noticed the woman sitting in bed, clutching her stomach, with swords mounted behind her on the wall. Linda said, “My God, that certainly looks like a woman grieving. . . that would be my sister.”
Focusing next on the card to the left, Linda reflected that the name Power resonated with her need to connect with a Higher Power. The image of a chariot coming down from the clouds was for her a good representation of higher consciousness.
This Power card from the Goddess Tarot deck corresponds to the Chariot card from the Major Arcana in most decks. It is commonly depicted as a vehicle on the ground, not descending from the heavens as in the image that Linda chose. The Chariot is typically pictured with a male figure driving two horses or sphinxes. So, it was empowering for Linda to see a woman chariot driver on this particular card. What seemed most synchronistic about this image were the two housecats pulling the chariot. Linda felt a direct relationship with this woman driver and the cats; she had two cats at home whom she adored.
The middle card, depicting a woman balancing two coins, immediately brought to mind the need to stay in balance by tending to her own needs, while her sister recuperated from loss and depression.
Linda was amazed by how accurately the images and their placements illustrated the situation and its remedy. Linda gained clarity and insight that she could trust her animal instincts (intuition) to guide her; and that a higher consciousness was present to help her maintain equilibrium and joy.
The Tarotpy layout and imagery can help each of us to rediscover and realign with a core sense of balance and integrity. I think of Tarotpy metaphorically as a chiropractic adjustment for the Soul.