The Tarot Diagnosis

On this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis , I discuss how I believe we are collectively living through one of the most significant periods of disorientation in modern history. Between political upheaval, personal and collective loss, illness, trauma, and rapid cultural, religious, and spiritual change, many of us are finding ourselves in the liminal, and trying desperately to claw out of it.  But…wha...

Personal note before you listen: To be honest, I sat on this episode for weeks. I almost didn’t share it - mainly because it felt too honest, too personal, too vulnerable. And I think there was a part of me that felt guilty. Despite the hesitation, here it is… In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis , I explore what it means to be an adult child of emotionally immature parents and how tarot can hel...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I’m pulling for June’s collective tarot reading where I explore a Summer Solstice inspired spread designed to help us step out of the shadows and into the growth of the sun. As we move toward the longest day of the year, I wanted to create a spread that examines what we've been avoiding, the fears keeping us stuck, and the growth that becomes possib...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I explore a question that has been lingering in my mind for months: What do the pillars in tarot actually symbolize on a deeper psychological level? Using Viktor Frankl’s famous quote - “Between stimulus and response there is a space…,” I reflect on how the pillars in cards like the High Priestess, Justice, the Hierophant, and even the Moon might repres...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I walk you through one of my favorite creative tarot practices: building a tarot spread in real time and then using it for our collective month-ahead reading for May! Instead of starting with a pre-made spread, I decided to let the cards guide the questions. As a therapist, I’m used to being a professional question asker, so this felt like a natural way...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I explore the Moon archetype through the lens of perception, ambiguity, and psychological insight. I also get super personal about my early experiences as a therapist. This episode was inspired by pulling The Moon after not seeing it in my readings for quite some time. That experience opened the door to a flood of memories from my early days as a therap...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I continue my monthly collective-reading tarot series with the classic Celtic Cross spread for April , using the truly stunning and special Earth Magick Tarot .  This month’s reading felt intense from the start with multiple Major Arcana appearing throughout the spread (six in total omg), the themes that surfaced centered around uncertainty, systemic in...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I share what happened when I found myself in a creative slump and did what I often encourage others to do…just shuffle the cards and follow what shows up. What surfaced were court cards, which led me back to a recent workshop I created on understanding the Pages, Knights, Queens, and Kings through the lens of psychosocial development and Jungian Psychoa...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I’m kicking off March with a new series for the pod: a monthly collective tarot reading. A lot of you asked for more frequent check-ins after my 2026 year-ahead reading, and honestly… I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this sooner. So, thank you for the suggestion! If you’ve been around my work for a while, you know I don’t read predictively. My r...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I explore why asking better questions might be the most important tarot skill you can develop. As a psychotherapist, I often joke that I’m a “professional question asker.” It’s half joke, half truth because the arc of a therapy session (sometimes even the arc of an entire therapeutic relationship) can hinge on one well-timed, well-crafted question. And...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I explore a concept called “poisoning the well” and how it can inconspicuously shape the way we interpret tarot, often before we’ve even given the cards a fair chance to speak, or ourselves an opportunity to be curious about the card. Poisoning the well can happen when we learn to fear a card before encountering it in its specific context, which makes a...

In this episode of ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I'm exploring something that’s been stirring in me since a recent book club event inside The Symposium : the way we unconsciously project motherhood onto tarot’s female figures.  After an insightful conversation in the book club (shoutout to Darcy for naming it so clearly: “Tarot doesn’t need another mother” ), I couldn’t stop thinking about how oft...

In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis , I discuss an epiphany I had after pulling the Three of Cups. It led me to reflect on the feeling I have when I’m in the middle of a crowd at a concert. Or, back in the day, when I’d wait in line for hours to be front and center of the stage at the barricade. It was such a euphoric feeling, everyone sharing in excitement and joy at the same moment in time fo...

In this last episode of 2025 for ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , and I’m offering a collective reading using my annual New Year spread. This reading is for all of us - a shared reflection on what we’re carrying forward, what we’re releasing, and how we can meet the coming year with more awareness, regulation, and intention. At the center of the spread is our 2026 collective year card: The Wheel of Fortu...

This week on ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I explore 2026 as a Wheel of Fortune year , with The Magician as its companion archetype - an invitation to step into the new year embracing change, adaptability, resilience, and meaningful participation. I keep returning to the idea of finding the center of the spinning wheel : not perfect stillness like we’re often led to believe we should be finding, but n...

I’ve had “Timekeeper” by Grace Potter & The Nocturnals stuck in my head, and it sent me down a rabbit hole about how we experience time - psychologically, somatically, and through tarot. In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I explore why time isn’t a single, objective thing we all live the same way. Instead, our nervous systems, mental health, creativity, grief, and even neurodivergence...

This week on ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I'm taking you behind the scenes of writing my new book, Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow (available for pre-order now, out December 8, 2025!). In this deeply personal episode, I share what happened the day I received my author copies: yes, including the moment I froze and couldn’t open the box. But more than that, I offer a director’s cut of the book itself -...

This week on ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , in honor of my upcoming book Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow , which releases on December 8, 2025, I’m reading a portion of chapter 2 (Roots of the Shadow) right here on the podcast. In Roots of the Shadow , I dive into the foundations of shadow work through a deeply therapeutic and psychologically grounded lens. I explore how Carl Jung’s original concept of the s...

What if the real root of evil isn’t money, but power? This week on ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , I take a deep, psychologically grounded look at the Six of Wands , a card typically associated with success and recognition, and reframe it through the lens of shadow work, power and control, neuroscience, and social dynamics . Inspired by a spread I pulled during a recent shadow workshop and influenced by...

What does it mean when tarot archetypes are blindfolded or their vision is obscured? In this week’s episode of The Tarot Diagnosis , I explore the often over-looked symbolism of obscured vision in tarot - where sight is blocked, avoided, invited or even denied. Inspired by six cards (Two of Swords, Four of Swords, Eight of Swords, Nine of Swords, Ten of Wands, and Strength), I take a psychological...

This week on ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , we’re exploring one of the most commonly misunderstood behaviors that exist in many of us: people-pleasing. Inspired by real conversations in the therapy room and the archetypal patterns of tarot, I explore people-pleasing through a trauma-informed, psychological, and tarot-based lens. While people-pleasing is often viewed as a virtue and praised as kindness...

This week on ⁠ The Tarot Diagnosis ⁠ , we’re getting delightfully nerdy. Inspired by a conversation with a dear friend, I explore tarot through the lens of developmental psychology , focusing specifically on Donald Winnicott’s concept of transitional objects , transitional space , and transitional phenomena . Traditionally, transitional objects are things like blankets, stuffed animals, or toys th...

After a rejuvenating break in nature, I'm back…and tarot wasted no time in offering a message that couldn’t be ignored. In this reflective episode of The Tarot Diagnosis , I share how three cards - T he Devil, The Three of Swords, and The Lovers - kept showing up across multiple decks, pointing to a powerful arc about relational stuck-ness, emotional pain, and the freedom of conscious choice....

This week on The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast , I pulled two seemingly contradictory cards (the Knight of Wands and the Seven of Pentacles) and found myself reflecting on the very human tension between urgency and patience . At first glance, these archetypes appear at odds: one races forward, fiery and eager; the other waits, steadies, and tends. But beneath the surface, they share a common root: passi...

When you think of the Wheel of Fortune, you might focus on the wheel itself - the chaos, the symbols, the turning of fate. But what about the soft, billowy clouds that frame the card? In this week’s episode of The Tarot Diagnosis , I take a journey into the symbolism of clouds in tarot, exploring how they quietly anchor some of the most profound archetypes in the deck. Far from being just backgrou...