What Are Metaphorical Cards — And Why Are Therapists and Coaches Using Them?

You've probably seen them in a therapist's office, a coaching session, or on someone's desk — a spread of unusual images that seem to mean everything and nothing at once. A foggy forest. A figure standing at the edge of something. A door half-open into the dark. These are metaphorical associative cards, and they've quietly become one of the most powerful tools in modern psychological and coaching practice.

But what exactly are they? How do they work? And why are serious professionals — therapists, coaches, facilitators — increasingly turning to them as a core part of their sessions?

This article answers all of that. And if you've never worked with metaphorical cards before, by the end you'll understand why so many people who try them once never go back to working without them.

A Brief History: From a Living Room in Canada to Clinics Worldwide

The story of metaphorical associative cards begins in the early 1980s, in the world of art and therapy. Canadian artist Ely Raman created a set of evocative images — not as a game, not as fortune-telling cards, but as a tool to make art accessible and emotionally useful for anyone. His friend and collaborator Moritz Egetmeyer, a therapist and publisher in Germany, immediately saw the potential: these images could do something that words alone often can't — they could open a person up.

Together, they created the first deck: OH Cards, published in 1981. The name came from the spontaneous reaction people had when they drew a card and suddenly recognized something true about themselves — a quiet, private "oh." The cards spread slowly at first, then rapidly. Today, they are used in over 30 countries, translated into 21 languages, and have inspired an entire category of therapeutic and coaching tools.

Over the following decades, the original OH Cards gave birth to a whole family of specialized decks: COPE (for trauma and coping resources), PERSONA (for identity and relationships), HABITAT (for environmental and ecological themes), and dozens of independently created decks from psychologists, coaches, and artists around the world.

Today, metaphorical associative cards — often abbreviated as MAC, or in Russian-speaking countries as МАК (метафорические ассоциативные карты) — are recognized as a legitimate projective technique used within gestalt therapy, psychosynthesis, narrative therapy, NLP, positive psychology, and many other approaches.

How Projection Works — And Why Images Bypass Our Defenses

To understand why metaphorical cards work, you need to understand one concept: projection.

In psychology, projection is the process by which we unconsciously assign our own thoughts, feelings, and meanings to external objects or images. When you look at an inkblot and see "a mother and child," you're not describing the inkblot — you're describing something inside yourself. The image acts as a screen onto which the inner world projects itself.

Metaphorical cards work on exactly this principle — but in a warmer, more accessible way than clinical projective tests like the Rorschach. The images are rich, evocative, and open-ended. There is no "right" interpretation. A card showing a figure standing at a crossroads might represent freedom to one person, paralysis to another, and homecoming to a third. All three are correct. All three are personal.

This is what makes MACs so powerful in clinical and coaching contexts: they bypass the thinking mind's defenses. When a therapist asks "How are you feeling about your relationship?", the conscious mind often intercepts the answer before it can be honest — reshaping it into something acceptable, logical, or expected. But when a therapist places a deck of images on the table and says "Choose a card that feels like your relationship right now," something different happens. The image catches the unconscious off guard. The real answer slips through before the editor can intervene.

Neuroscience supports this. Image processing activates the brain's right hemisphere — the seat of emotion, intuition, and pattern recognition — before the left hemisphere's language centers can rationalize and reframe. In other words, the card reaches the feeling before the story about the feeling has time to form.

5 Areas Where Metaphorical Cards Are Used

1. Psychotherapy and Counseling

Therapists use MACs to access what clients find difficult to say directly. The image creates a safe distance — "it's not me who feels that, it's the person in the card" — which paradoxically allows clients to get closer to the truth. Cards are used to explore childhood memories, relationship patterns, trauma responses, grief, and inner conflict. They are particularly effective with clients who intellectualize, are resistant to direct questioning, or struggle to access emotional language.

2. Life Coaching and Executive Coaching

Coaches use metaphorical cards to help clients clarify goals, identify unconscious beliefs that block progress, and access their own wisdom about what they truly want. A classic technique: ask the client to choose a card that represents where they are now, and another that represents where they want to be. What lies between those two cards becomes the work of the coaching relationship. The visual externalization of internal experience makes abstract concepts concrete and discussable.

3. Art Therapy and Expressive Arts

In art therapy, MACs function as both a projective tool and a creative starting point. Clients may be invited to draw their response to a card, write a letter from the perspective of the image, or use the card as a launching pad for creative expression. This approach is especially valuable for children, adolescents, and adults who find traditional talk therapy limiting or inaccessible.

4. Personal Self-Reflection

You don't need to be in therapy or coaching to benefit from metaphorical cards. Many people use them as a personal practice — pulling a card each morning as a focus for the day, using them for journaling prompts, or working with them when facing a difficult decision. The process is simple: hold a question in mind, choose a card that feels relevant, and sit with what arises. Often what the image reveals is more honest than what deliberate thinking would have produced.

5. Group Work, Team Building, and Facilitation

Facilitators and organizational coaches use MACs in group settings to open conversations that would otherwise feel risky or abstract. Asking a team to each choose a card that represents "how I feel about this project right now" creates a safer, more equal space than direct questioning — and often surfaces dynamics that weren't visible before. Metaphorical cards are used in leadership development programs, diversity workshops, conflict resolution, and team retrospectives.

How Are Metaphorical Cards Different from Tarot?

This is one of the most common questions — and one of the most important to answer clearly, because the confusion causes many professionals to hesitate before trying MACs.

Tarot cards carry fixed meanings. The Death card means transformation. The Tower means upheaval. The Fool means new beginnings. Tarot is an ancient symbolic system with a codified interpretation tradition going back centuries. You can study what the cards mean, and a skilled reader will apply those meanings to a reading. Tarot is, at its core, interpretive — the reader brings a framework.

Metaphorical associative cards carry no fixed meanings whatsoever. A card showing a figure sitting alone by a window means whatever it means to you, right now, in this moment. There is no "correct" interpretation. No one can tell you what your card means — only you can. The specialist's role is not to interpret, but to ask questions, hold space, and help the client deepen their own understanding of what arose.

This distinction is not merely philosophical — it's clinically significant. Tarot operates through the practitioner's knowledge and symbolic framework. MACs operate through the client's own psyche. The card is not a message from an external source; it is a mirror of what's already inside.

Other important differences:

• MACs are not predictive. They do not tell the future. They illuminate the present.
• MACs are used within psychological and coaching frameworks — they are a technique, not a practice in themselves.
• MACs require no belief system. They work for sceptics and spiritual seekers alike, because the mechanism is psychological, not mystical.
• MACs are ethically and professionally recognized. They are taught in psychology programs, referenced in academic literature, and used within evidence-based therapeutic modalities.

In short: Tarot is a map drawn by tradition. A metaphorical card is a blank mirror. What you see in it belongs entirely to you.

What Happens in a Session with Metaphorical Cards?

In practice, working with MACs is simple — and that simplicity is part of their power. A therapist or coach might spread a deck face-down on the table (or on a digital platform) and invite the client to choose one or several cards without looking. Or the deck may be spread face-up, and the client chooses what draws them. There's no wrong way to begin.

What follows is a conversation guided by questions: What do you see? What's the first feeling this image brings up? If this figure could speak, what would it say? What in your life does this remind you of? The client leads. The image holds space. The specialist follows with curiosity, not interpretation.

Sessions can last five minutes or an entire hour. Cards can be used as session openers, as the central method, or as a way to close and integrate. They can be used individually or combined — one card for "the problem," one for "the resource," one for "what I haven't yet seen."

Why the Format Is Moving Online

For decades, metaphorical cards were inherently physical — a deck in a drawer, spread on a wooden table, handled with intention. But as therapy and coaching moved online (a shift dramatically accelerated in recent years), practitioners needed a way to bring this work into digital sessions without losing its depth.

That's exactly why platforms like MindTrays exist. Digital metaphorical cards are not a compromise — they are an extension. The images remain evocative. The process of choosing remains intuitive. What changes is only the medium, not the mechanism.

Online MACs allow practitioners to work with clients across any distance, save session layouts to return to them later, and give clients independent access to reflective practice between sessions. For self-directed users, they make a once-niche practice available to anyone, anywhere, at any moment of need.

Try It for Yourself

The best way to understand metaphorical cards is not to read about them — it's to experience them. Choose a question you're sitting with right now. Something unresolved, unclear, or emotionally charged. Then open a deck and let a card choose you.

Notice what you see first. Notice what you feel. Don't analyze — just observe. That first moment of contact between your question and the image is where the work begins.

MindTrays offers free access to curated decks for therapy, coaching, and self-reflection — directly in your browser, with no downloads required. Whether you're a professional exploring a new tool for your practice, or someone simply curious about what cards might reveal, you're welcome to begin.

Explore the decks and start your first session — free →