Author Jessica Dore is a masters level social worker (MSW), and a genuinely intelligent, deep, thoughtful and creative intellectual, who also fucks seriously with the tarot.

She’s not a licensed, working clinician, as she prefers to operate in the interstitial zone between officially sanctioned, contemporary, evidence based, psychotherapy, and practices of spiritual self inquiry such as yoga, meditation and (you guessed it) tarot.

Her assertion is, that there are certain aspects of psychological and spiritual experience, that psychology and psychotherapy doesn’t capture and address as well as the spiritual, mystical and mythopoetic traditions.

She also acknowledges that psychology and psychotherapy accomplish certain things that the afore mentioned spiritual traditions can’t, don’t or won’t.

Rather than adapting one system to the other, she stays rooted in both, borrowing liberally from one to the other and translating in between.

The result is a very cool, psychologically sound, psychotherapeutic way of interpreting and utilizing the Tarot.

Or conversely, a Tarot influenced way of understanding psychotherapy and psychology.

She is heavily influenced by acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and is such, a therpaist with whom I can get really down with. And she has created a way of working with Tarot that (somehow) makes both ACT/DBT and the Tarot more accessible and more powerful.

I have no idea how she pulled this off.

But she did.

And I’m genuinely impressed and inspired.

Ms. Dore, if you’re out there reading this.

Nice fucking job.

As some readers know.

I’m a therapist, and my clincial orientation is ACT/DBT aka Third Wave Behaviorism. I went to art school in the 90’s and worked as a creative professional for before becoming a therapist. I have also spent a life time studying and practicing mindfulness meditation and yoga.

Given that, I feel about as generally educated and experienced in these overlapping domains (creativity, spirituality, and psychology) as anyone.

All of that is a long way of prefacing, that I learned a lot from this book, it WAY exceeded my expectations, and I’m super excited about it.

ACT is all about:
- arriving in the here and now (A)
- clarifying what matters (C)
- and taking action (T)

And ACT attempts to connect people with something worthy and exciting to step to, so they can stop running away from discomfort, and chasing after cheep thrills and fleeting pleasures, and start building a meaningful life.

ACT assumes people are “stuck not broken”.

ACT attempts to get you “out of your head and into your life” and to get you “unstuck and moving in a direction that matters”.

This book is all about how to use the Tarot to shake it up, get fired up, and get unstuck.

DBT is all about:
- synthesizing the dialectic (D)
- behaving effectively (B)
- and taking wise action (T)

DBT synthesis the dialectic between thinking and feeling, and acceptance and change, in order to cultivate and behave from “wise mind”.

DBT assumes people don’t “rise to the occasion” but rather “sink to the level of their training”.

DBT trains people to use mindfulness, to regulate emotions, tolerate distress, interact with others more effectively and “create a life worth living”.

This book is all about how to use Tarot to cultivate wise mind and take wise action.

I was shocked by how effectively Dore described and applied the constructs of ACT/DBT and a BUNCH of other cool psychotherapy models.

And (as mentioned) I learned a lot about them from reading the book and considering these ideas in this new way.

AWESOME for that alone.

But it’s not just about us wing Tarot to understand and apply in psychotherapy.

It’s also about how to use psychologically and psychotherapy to understand and use the Tarot.

According to Dore, Tarot cards are like little windows into the inner world. With each card acting like a lens or filter, focused on a particular quality of being, or dilemma of human existence.

Dore translates the hoses of the Tarot as equivalent to the psychotherapeutically relevant domains of:
- wands = energy (motivation/vitality)
- cups = emotional processes
- swords = thinking processes
- pentacles = behavior

With each of the minor arcana (the number and suit cards) and major arcana (big archetypal these such as death, power, wisdom, learning etc.) translating into a very relatable issues, and generative themes in each case.

According to Dore.

Our basic evolutionary program is to:
* Avoid Pain
* Seek Pleasure 
* Conserve Energy (do it the east way)

Any time we’re living by this basic way.

We’re living lives of unconsciousness, automaticity and meaninglessness.

Which isn’t a problem.

Until it’s a problem.

Then it’s a problem.

Dore asserts that real creativity, spiritual growth, and behavioral sovereignty (magic) entails stepping outside that basic program, either when the basic program is leading you astray, or when it is time to create new things or go in new, counterintuitive directions.

The cards can be “mirrors” to novel encounter your psycho-spiritual self in a novel new way.

The cards can also be a cool way to creatively engage the unconscious processes to engender inspiration, innovation and progress on your journey of self actualization and differentiation.

And they can get you out of your ridged, stuck, ineffective “cognitive and emotional” frame, and see things with fresh, wise eyes.

And…

The whole thing is just plain fun.

The book is a great ‘cover to cover’ read. And it can also be a reference guide for each card.

I loved it.

5/5 stars ⭐️

Surprising