Tarot & Psychology

I have been reading the book Tarot and Psychology by Arthur Rosengarten. Ph.D. It is an interesting book about the use of Tarot in counseling sessions. Up until now I had not incorporated Tarot into counseling. I have been reading Tarot cards for many years now and have always found many of the readings became counseling sessions with the querants (or clients).
Many people think Tarot readings are the work of the devil, or are calling on mystical spirits to inhabit the room or the air about the reading. I think this is sad in its ignorance of how Tarot really works. We all carry the answers to our problems inside of us, most often hidden from our conscious mind. Tarot simply is a vehicle to tap into your (and the reader's) subconscious in a gentle and visual way. There is no 'hocus-pocus' about it.
In some of the readings I have done that had been powerful in their ability to bring the most important problems and choices to the querant, I have had what might be called insights into the reading that the querant may not be cognizant of at the time. Sometimes the insights are good to discuss during the reading, and sometimes the insights are best kept from the querrant in the reading. An example may be a reading that illustrates a relationship difficulty that shows a possible breakup of the couple. Giving this information to the querant may cause the future of the couple to change, putting into his/her mind an inevitability to the reading, which may not be true.
Tarot does not predict the future.
What the readings do is to give possibilities, to define the issues most important to the person receiving the reading (querant). In the last part of the sentence, I give an example: I had done readings for a single mom of two adolescent boys. She wanted a weekly reading. her intention (more in that soon), was to find what next man would enter her life. Every time her reading showed issues between her sons and her. On the one final reading, I stated (again) that she need work on her relationship with her sons before she could engage in a successful adult relationship. I say final reading because she chose to not have readings after a difficult conversation about her relationship with her boys.
as illustrated, most Tarot readings show what is most important in your life, usually not what you want to hear in a reading, much like counseling? I think so.

Next post: How Tarot is effective in a counseling session, and issues in using Tarot with some clients.