Training with OH Cards

I am a child psychiatrist. I use OH Cards more during trainings than in clinical work and have been using them for so long that I don’t recall where I heard of them. Aside from the usual way of using OH Cards to give visual expression that assists the verbal expression of feelings, I use them in training sessions to create a visual image of the feelings elicited in the group.

For example, a group member chooses a card that represents how they feel in a certain situation (for example, when a complaint of sexual abuse comes to their attention). I then ask the other participants to choose cards and we have a round of sharing where people express the feeling on their card. Then I ask the members of the group to place their cards on a surface one by one. The first person places their card somewhere and then each participant in turn places their card in relation to the cards already placed. Thus, clusters are created, and the spread of feelings of the group finds visual (simultaneous and hierarchical) representation. This helps group members see the entire group and their place in it.

This process links the auditory (left brain) expressions of group connections with a visual (right brain) representation of the group, with the right brain being more directly related to feeling.