Methods

When introducing Three Card Therapy our first move is to give the client a deck and encourage them to play with it for a week. Look at the shapes and patterns. Dwell on a card. Perform quick readings with friends. Experiment! Once a degree of comfortable familiarity has been established we can explore a variety of uses.

(i) Quick Readings

One quick and effective use of the cards is to see them as indicative of symptoms, illness and healing. The first central EXS card offers a summary of how a particular condition is presenting itself – symptoms. The UAS (left side) card suggests the feelings and emotions that underly the illness/condition but which have not hitherto been brought to full consciousness. The right sided card is the TS. This points the reader/client to a Healing that transcends contemporary solutions.

The Question:
The client sits hung over on a Sunday morning. He wonders about his excessive partying. He draws three cards. The Unconscious card is Fear, next to that is the Expected Self card Celebratory, and the third Transformative card on the right is Nurture.
The Excessive partying is revealed in the Celebratory card.
This is a bright and happy design but it can indicate abandon or avoidance. What might it be a symptom of? Has he ‘swallowed’ the object rather than dwelt with it? The Unconscious card is Fear. Is there something lurking in his unconscious he is unwilling to face? Is his excessive partying a running away from his problems? Is he frightened of facing up to his feelings? Might this be the illness at the root of his symptoms?
The Healing is offered in the third card he draws – Nurture. The thick borders around this card suggest the need to retreat from raucous company and offer himself a degree of warmth and compassion not least to counteract the Fear of the unconscious card and bring himself to a more grounded place.

Another quick method we call day-reading .
Rather than slipping into the patterns of the EXS – the identity (and pressure) most people wake up to – try laying the cards out in the three card pattern and asking ‘What should I look out for today?’ This will reveal your habitual response (EXS) what you usually have to hide (UAS) and what you might lean into for inspiration (TS). Take a screenshot of the three cards and refer to it throughout the day.

(ii) Decisions

This is a method in which we explore more aspects of a clients’ psyche when faced with a decision of some significance. The cards are shuffled while the reader turns the question over in their mind. The layout of the cards is the same. First card to be drawn is the Expected Self, the second card on the left is the Unconscious Adapting Self and the third card on the right is the Transformative self.

This time we proceed in five stages.

Step one.
Write down your immediate impression of these three cards. Don’t think. Just write.
Step two.
Analyse the connection between the UAS card and the EXS card. Do they work together or do they represent a conflict?
Step three.
Look at the connection between the EXS card and the TS card. Can you see how the TS card moves you beyond the moment into a different way of approaching the decision?
Step four.
Remove the EXS card and look at the connection between the UAS and TS cards. This is the larger context in which the EXS operates. In this moment are revealed the larger forces that frame the actions and patterns of the EXS’ behaviour. How might this larger context aid the EXS as she goes about her work?
Step five.
Return to your first impression in step one. Put these readings together.

The proof of value here is in how the cards enable you to suspend your connection to the everyday self. The idea is to shake up the patterns of the EXS and to explore your potential to feel and experience alignment – to realise
Home is Now and Now is Home.

(iii). Obstacles.
Our aim here is to explore your relationship to the Obstacles. To do this it will be necessary to look into your history.Find a photograph. Identify the context – party, office, trip etc.
Shuffle the cards. Now choose the EXS card. Let’s imagine it’s Appearance. What does this bring up? You’ll notice that the EXS cards involve a lot of circles – either in dotted lines or in small circles or in some cases the reader inhabits or represents the circle.

These circles are the Obstacles and the card suggests your relationship to them. In Appearance we see four circles – each representing mirrors. What we see in Others is not the truth but we may read it as such. What is hidden is us we may see in them etc. Appearance brings up the hall of mirrors analogy. To what degree did you inhabit
the role others thought you were playing? To what extent is it still your script? Write this down.

Take the first UAS card from the top of the deck and lay it alongside the EXS. Let’s imagine this is Lust. What was going on with you bodily at the time? Were you experiencing an awakening of your sexual identity? Is the object of this affection in the picture? Who
else was subject to this feeling? What is your relationship to this Lust now? Encouragement or disapproval or confusion? Write this down too.

Take the first TS card from the top of the deck and lay it to the right of the EXS card.
Let’s imagine this is Empathy. How does this change the reading? Is a concern with Appearances a way of hiding away from the need for Empathy? Is Lust a physical way of craving the deep connection encoded in Empathy or is it something else? Did your connection to Appearance have a consistency illustrating a connection to a script or was it a fleeting moment that you soon realised was out of touch with what you wanted? Did your inhabiting the Obstacle (of Appearance) prevent you from thinking about it and what Lust represented in terms of need? Has Empathy moved you or or are you still in the script? Write this down and then consider the combination of all three paragraphs.

These are open questions and don’t pretend to offer easy answers. Modern life is messy! But by approaching your past from a loving distance you can begin to perceive patterns that you were unaware of. You may notice hidden consistencies and inconsistencies.

You come to the realisation that for all the efforts of the Expected Self we are in the thrall of far greater forces.

Home is Now and Now is Home.