Affirmation vs. Accuracy?

[Barleywine]

I studied Psychology & Counselling and in a counselling session a Therapist doesn't really give advise nor offer insight into a situation based on what s/he thinks unless mirroring what the client says.

Client: "I am angry because my mother is a control freak!"
Counsellor: " So, your mother makes you angry because you see her as a control freak".

Thanks! I often wondered why psychiatrists are frequently portrayed as simply parroting what the client says. It always seemed kind of obtuse, but now I can see the reason for the subtle twist.

 

[ana luisa]

I agree with you, Barleywine. It may well be that people see readers as akin to wizards/witches and that we may have the power to "make it right". No wonder many not-so-honest scammers do their private upselling (candles, incantations and the lot) to "dispell" the bad and call the good. It is all about maturity and vulnerability. Tarot can be used as a tool to help deal with the bad in the best way but some people are just not ready for it...

 

[IndigoWaves]

Generally, people will leave a review if they are happy with the reading. If not, they just need to internalise it and digest it, hence just kinda go away with their tail in between their legs.

That's a big reason why sometimes people here don't leave feedback for readings, too. I can usually tell when my interpretation won't sit well with a querant. If there's silence or so-called inadequate feedback then, it's not a huge concern to me; I "get" it and would just as soon let them alone (but there's still the rules, I guess)...

 

[Laurelle]

This is very interesting about the psychologist/psychotherapy thing. I didn't know that.

What does a life coach do? There are two life coaches in one of my study tarot groups. I should ask exactly what that entails and if they use cards.

I studied Psychology & Counselling and in a counselling session a Therapist doesn't really give advise nor offer insight into a situation based on what s/he thinks unless mirroring what the client says.

Client: "I am angry because my mother is a control freak!"
Counsellor: " So, your mother makes you angry because you see her as a control freak".

With "Tarot" I know some use it to "counsel" only if advise is given it makes me wonder. I suppose choices could be laid out and then it is up to the client to choose, but advise is not usually what a counselor does. S/he is supposed to enable a client to see through whatever confusion or dilemma and then to make her or his own choices etc.

Tarot gives advise and choices and it is the responsibility of the reader to be considerate and not harsh if it isn't necessary. As for the sitter, if s/he is not prepared to listen to a few home truths, then s/he should not be asking for a reading.

To me it works both ways.

 

[Michael Sternbach]

I studied Psychology & Counselling and in a counselling session a Therapist doesn't really give advise nor offer insight into a situation based on what s/he thinks unless mirroring what the client says.

Client: "I am angry because my mother is a control freak!"
Counsellor: " So, your mother makes you angry because you see her as a control freak".


It is all about rapport and a lot of listening and even challenging a little if there are inconsistencies. Walking in the client's shoes you could say.

With "Tarot" I know some use it to "counsel" only if advise is given it makes me wonder. I suppose choices could be laid out and then it is up to the client to choose, but advise is not usually what a counselor does. S/he is supposed to enable a client to see through whatever confusion or dilemma and then to make her or his own choices etc.

Tarot gives advise and choices and it is the responsibility of the reader to be considerate and not harsh if it isn't necessary. As for the sitter, if s/he is not prepared to listen to a few home truths, then s/he should not be asking for a reading.

To me it works both ways.

I worked as a Tarot reader, astrologer, and Bach Flower therapist in close cooperation with a psychiatrist/psychotherapist during most of the 90s, plus I had the opportunity to watch quite a few others as well. Based on that, I would say, it really depends on the therapist whether any advice is being shared or not. A Freudian psychoanalysist is not supposed to be anything but a blank screen for a patient, whereas a behaviourist may emphasize working out practical solutions together with them. In practice, many take a position somewhere in-between.

Tarot can also be used in a way that has the querent simply tell whatever they associate with a certain (possibly even consciously chosen) card. Of course, this is quite different from a classical reading. I found that what works best for me in a therapeutic setting is a middle way between telling the querent how I read the card, and giving them space to develop their own thoughts. In other words, I like to use the cards as a foundation for a dialogue.

And yes, I do say what I see in the cards, even at the risk that the client doesn't come back (but they do, as a rule). Working with psychotherapeutic patients taught me that it doesn't always matter what is being said as much as how it is being said though. There is an upside to almost everything, there are opportunities for growth in most situations, and there are very often ways to turn a wsell understood condition to the better. For that matter, I do emphasize advice over prediction - for little is set in stone.

Talking about the advice that Tarot can offer, again, I consider that I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I would twist what I'm seeing in the cards in a way that would make the most sense to my conscious mind. To give you an example:

A member of a therapeutic group, a young woman, wanted to know if she should approach her father whom she didn't have any real communication with for a number of years. The cards gave a clear warning, and I told her so. No, there were some "professional" therapists present, trying to do things by the book; they were truly shocked by my discouraging the young woman from taking that step now, and critisized me rather heavily. Only in the aftermath of my reading, and with the help of aforesaid psychiatrist, did it turn out that there were some heavy issues regarding that relationship that needed to be addressed first in the patient's psyche. The psychiatrist concluded that approaching the father prematurely would only have reinforced those problems - and applauded me for foreseeing this.

So yes, being honest about what the cards tell you is crucial. Even when they don't give you the picture you/your sitter would like to see, it might lead to something really helpful - which would never occur if you would have glossed over the negativity. But how you say something may indeed make all the difference.

 

[Barleywine]

I found that what works best for me in a therapeutic setting is a middle way between telling the querent how I read the card, and giving them space to develop their own thoughts. In other words, I like to use the cards as a foundation for a dialogue.

I couldn't agree more, and have always read this way. I'm very clear with my querents that the reading is theirs, not mine, and I actively engage them in providing their own insights as the reading progresses. I try to play the card meanings back to them in a way that they can clearly understand, assimilate and make use of. The dialogue is a crucial part of making that connection.

 

[Zephyros]

I've never been good at giving predictive readings, so I limit myself to "probability" readings, which means that certain behaviors or influences will most probably lead to whatever events. This gives me greater flexibility in telling it "like it is" because rather than delivering bad news I try to make any reading at the very least constructive. For example, some event you wish to come to fruition will only come to pass if you put put this kind of energy. Some things can't be massaged but I've found that when the general atmosphere of the reading is more constructive than predictive then bad news tends to come across as not so dire.

Of course, there's always a chance that just because I myself don't see something doesn't mean it won't happen or it doesn't exist. I usually work with my own fallibility to get better readings and the chances of better accuracy improve when I work with the querent. I never do long monologues where reader sits and fills the air with words about what they see. I was never good at that.

 

[Disa]

I never "sugar coat" anything. I'm pretty blunt by nature, and I've worked really, REALLY hard to learn some tact in my every day life, and especially in trying to convey messages where the Tarot is concerned. I don't always succeed in being tactful, it's a process. I do try to phrase the difficult cards or situations in a way that isn't alarming.

For the person who asked the difference between reading tarot and life coaching, I definitely don't mix the two. If someone wants a tarot reading, that's a whole different service than a life coaching session. Life coaching is more about seeing where the person is in life, where they are going, what their goals are, where they want to make changes or improvements, and helping them come up with an action plan to break through their own obstacles. Coaching involves supporting the client, assisting them in seeing their own potential and problem solving skills and utilizing that to accomplish whatever goals they have set for themselves. Sometimes they are assigned "homework" a series of small action steps they take from one session to another to make progress towards their larger goals. Then they are "held accountable" in a sense for their progress. I guess some of that is done in a reading, as well- but it's really a whole different process. I'm sure some people combine them and can do it very well- for me it's two completely different things.

 

[Barleywine]

I've never been good at giving predictive readings, so I limit myself to "probability" readings, which means that certain behaviors or influences will most probably lead to whatever events. This gives me greater flexibility in telling it "like it is" because rather than delivering bad news I try to make any reading at the very least constructive.

I usually work with my own fallibility to get better readings and the chances of better accuracy improve when I work with the querent. I never do long monologues where reader sits and fills the air with words about what they see.

In retrospect, I probably should have defined my terms. Divination, as I see it, is seeking insight through a "higher" (or more subtle) source, in whatever supranormal region we happen to think that tarot operates. There is a fluidity of expression that hinges more on probability than on hard-and-fast predictability. Prediction is more about making "seat-of-the-pants" assertions regarding future events based on hints or cues in present circumstances. The most I'll bend on that estimation is to call it a "SWAG" ("scientific wild-ass guess") method. The scope of the question often leaves enough "wiggle room" to ply our craft in the realm of probability alone, but enlightening the querent is foremost in my mind. If they walk away with a head full of encouraging probabilities when all they came for was some faint semblance of a certainty (even if they already knew in their hearts what that would turn out to be), I probably haven't dug deeply enough. My own assumption is that tarot plumbs a querent's subconscious, where an embryonic kernel of truth about a future state of being is already forming; it's the old "we make our own reality" theory of Buddhist thought: "Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart."

 

[nisaba]

So I've been somewhat bemused by what I see as the "Don't worry, be happy!" school of modern tarot reading.

We're losing a sense of reality. "Don't worry that you're suffering - everything happens for a reason"? Crap. Sounds like an excuse to blame the victims and let the culpable off. Sounds, in fact, like the Witchfinders of Mediaeval Europe, who said that the punishments for witchcraft were so horrible that God would never let anyone who was innocent be accused. (ref. "Malleus Malificarium" by Kramer and Sprenger.) Yeah, yeah, you chose this suffering, don't you know. The Jews chose to be born in a time and place that had Hitler. It's all good. Rubbish, I say.

I think it can run dangerously close to "telling querents what they want to hear;"

It's politically correct, these days, to look after the poor, tender souls and pull golden angel or fairy cards and tell them everything's all right. Me, I pull the Seven Wands or the Ten Swords, and I tell it like it is. Plus looking for ways in which they can become more in control of their lives. And you know what? My clients leave GRATEFUL that the reading actually expressed the uncomfortable realities of their lives, which apparently no one else's readings ever do, and showed them what options they could take, instead of just doing what every other reader around here does and telling them that everything was "karma" and "happened for a reason", and sending them off $50 poorer and with nothing they can do about it.