Oh- Cards

Last weekend I participated in the International Conference "Metaphorical Cards In Working With Difficult Life Situations." Different speakers from Israel, Kazakhstan, and Russia presented practical cases of using Oh-cards for working with such issues as:

- correction of cognitive distortions;
- situations of uncertainty and instability;
- narrative anxiety therapy;
- crisis psychology;
- relationship trauma;
- psychology of immigration.

Noticeably, Oh-card as a therapeutic and life coaching tool was developed in Canada; however, it is more widely used by psychologists in Europe than in the USA. Not many of my peers from the psychological department know about it. It is sad because it is a very powerful projective instrument that helps to touch traumatic events without direct interventions.

The OH Cards were invented by Canadian artist Ely Raman, and first published in 1982. The OH genre grew slowly over the years, starting with the publication, in 1989, of Saga, a 55–card deck of paintings by Ely Raman illustrating scenes in possible fairy tales. Two years later American artist David Ellis produced a deck of 99 cards with abstract paintings called Ecco. The Canadian naturalist and artist [Christian Gronau] focused on our interaction with the natural environment with a deck of 88 cards called Habitat (1993). Ely Raman explored a different use of two–deck interactivity with a pair of decks called Persona (1994), one of the portraits; the other of abstract designs that can symbolize possible social interactions or personal relationships.

The OH Cards are a genre of special playing cards used as storytelling prompters, counseling and psychotherapeutic tools, communication enhancers, educational aids, and social interactive games. The OH cards have no official or traditional interpretations of images, and instructions included with the decks encourage imaginative and personal interpretations of the images. Usually, these images are small paintings created by various artists. As a genre, OH cards are unconventional "information containers," unbound books with no set sequence of pages. The OH cards are intended to encourage people to interpret their own cards and speculate on their meaning without adherence to any particular ideology and without the intervention of an expert. This process makes possible the exploration of such phenomena as perception differences, projection, transference, stimulation, cognition, intuition, and meaning.

Thus, OH Cards operate in the interface of literature, art appreciation, games, and psychology. Most commonly, they are used as a focus for self–examination. In some parts of the world, they are called Cards of Association.

If you would like to know how this approach can help you and what hidden gifts it may contain, please feel free to contact me.

Warmly,

Your Dance of Polychrome