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Sooner or later those who involve themselves with the associative cards are sure to make the surprising discovery that cards drawn sight unseen can actually seem to reflect the life situation of the player who drew them, and this with an unexpected accuracy – with such an accuracy, in fact, that one involuntarily finds oneself asking whether something besides chance could possibly be at play.
This observation, made repeatedly, has in some circles led to the associative cards being ascribed an almost magical force, as if the cards themselves have the ability attributed to oracles of being able to reveal the questioner’s innermost self.
Are such parallels between card sets and actual life situations mere coincidence, or are other mechanisms at work which we do not understand?
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
 As an educational counsellor and bibliotherapist, I work with children in the elementary school as well as in a teachers’ training college, preparing the students for their therapeutic and educational work with children.
Last year, we Israelis lived through one of the most traumatic periods of our existence. There were many terrorist acts in the country, suicidal bombings that cost the lives of innocent citizens…. Children were also involved: many were badly wounded or maimed, some lost their lives. Others lost their parents, leaving them orphaned. Moreover, many parents of young children who were not directly affected by the bombings became over-protective toward them, transmitting their fears and anxieties onto them. Many of these children could not concentrate on their studies, were restless, and regressed in behaviour. Scenes of acting out were common during this period. To top this, our prime minister, Mr. Rabin, was assassinated by a fellow Jew. This was the last straw. It was even more traumatic for the children, as he was, on the one had, a father figure, while on the other hand, some of the pupils had heard political utterings against him in ther homes. This led to their feeling rather guilty.
As can be very well imagined, it was almost impossible to treat these children. We tried many and various methods. Many of them were almost catatonic, depressed, and would not cooperate. On the spur of the moment, I took out the ECCO cards. I laid them out on the table, face up, and told the children to choose one that reminded them of recent events. Unbelievably, these cards were the only key to their bottled up fears, frustrations, and traumas. Somehow, these cards seemed to enable them to project their feelings onto the abstract forms. My next step was to ask them to find, in the very same cards, some silver lining, something that gave them hope for the future. Each and every child was able to do so.
This gave me a bright idea: I invited their parents for a session, working in the same way with them. I explained that I wanted them to know what their children had undergone. They were to imagine which card their own child had chosen and what he or she had said. Naturally, they also projected their own feelings onto these cards, and after a deep discussion, they were mentally free to help their children.
It goes without saying that my students at the teachers’ training college learned to do the same with their pupils. The ECCO cards are a wonderful help, at all times, in working with children.
Adina S. Flasher, PhD
Kiriat Bialik, Israel
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
In the 6th grade grammar lesson we were discussing word order in sentences in terms of subject and predicate, how the subject is always a “naming word” of which one asks, “Who or what is doing something?” and the predicate is always a “doing word.” The children were asked to formulate simple sentences and to name the subject and predicate in them. A game with SAGA images and the OH [original deck] word cards stimulated an “OH!” experience for all of them.
Each child drew one SAGA picture and one OH word card bearing a verb (I had sorted the cards in advance). The picture card was to be the subject and the word card the predicate. Each child constructed the shortest possible sentence with his card set — for example, “The raven takes” — and in doing so playfully and intuitively grasped the concepts of subject and predicate.
Edith Schuette ~ Teacher
Hamburg, Germany
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
In showing the children (six years old) MORENÁ for the first time, I was innundated by questions: “Why are there so many ants on these cards?” “Ants are everywhere, but what are they doing?” “Aren’t the people bothered by the ants?” Therefore, before we actually began playing with the cards we exchanged jungle knowledge. Each child told what he or she knows about the animals, plants, and people who live in the tropical forests.
We also talked about what functions and tasks the individual inhabitants of the forest fulfill, what characteristics they have and what they look like. It became apparnet that for many of the children much of the information was completely new. Afterwards, I told them about the importance of ants and other insects to the life of the jungle.
After this exchange of information we began playing with the cards. Our game was accompanied by Latin American music playing softly in the background, which enhanced even more the warm atmosphere.
Robert Doman ~ Teacher
Lublin, Poland
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
 Ofra Ayalon, one of the creators of the COPE deck shares her experience of using PERSONA cards in a peace-training and reconciliation workshop…
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While politicians from the warring sides in former-Yugoslavia were negotiating a brittle peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio, in mid-November of 1995 a group of 28 psychologists from Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro convened in an isolated, snow-covered, hilltop hotel on the Hungarian border to negotiate the psychological prerequisites for reconciliation. Meeting under the auspices of UNICEF and U.K. Jewish Aid, our training team was composed of three Israeli psychologists (Ayalon, Lahad and Gal), experts in issues dealing with war-traumatized populations.
One of the leading themes in this workshop was exploring the archetypes of Shadow and Evil and learning to recognize the projections of internal evil on the image of the Enemy. Our purpose was to show how an “Enemy” attracts “demonic” attributes which “justify” hatred, persecution and annihilation.
The purpose of presenting this theme was to raise participants’ awareness of the duality of “good” and “evil” within the human psyche and to experience and understand the human tendency to project “evil” onto others. By re-owning these rejected parts of ourselves we take the first step toward accepting the “other.” This process of awareness demands increasing the ability to contain opposites — such as good and evil, right and wrong, et cetera — within ourselves and to integrate them into our personalities.
We used PERSONA cards as the trigger for these projections in a process which we called “Me and Not-Me (a Blind Date): a dialogue between the imaginary representations of inner dichotomization.”
The PERSONA images were used in two phases — first, to split, and, later, to integrate projections of the “me” and the “not-me.”
We asked the participants to choose two images from the PERSONA portrait deck, to bring them together as if on a “blind date” and then to create a dialogue between them. The instructions were as follows:
- Choose one image that you like and one image that you don’t like.
- Place them in front of you on a piece of paper. Divide the paper in two.
- Write whatever comes to mind for each image.
- Choose a real or an imagined space where these two people can meet. Who will be the first to notice the other? Let them tell each other about themselves — where they live, how old they are, with whom they live. What are their first reactions, feelings, thoughts toward each other? Let them respond to each other.
- See where this dialogue takes you.
- Sit in couples and share your stories.
- Reflect on the process and on the following questions:
Were you able to bring them closer to each other?
Did your feelings about them change at all?
Can these people co-exist or do they need to stay separate?
The process: Participants created imaginary dialogues with their personified portraits, wrote about them, addressed them directly, role-played and listened carefully to their own voices. These creative activities helped participants expand their self-awareness and acceptance of their inner demons. Later, this process moved from imaginary to the cognitive channel through a re-framing of the process and discussion of methods of bridge-building between polarized ethnic and political groups. The PERSONA cards were found to be very useful for triggering intense emotions (such as love and hate) because the images are portrayed in a way that makes them personal and archetypal at one and the same time. The same process that was used in this workshop for reconciliation and peace work between countries is often used successfully in my clinical work for couples and families.
Dr. Ofra Ayalon, psychologist, couple and family therapist, bibliotherapist
Tivon, Israel
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
As part of my own personal development, I often work with ideas of my future self, my goals and dreams. One way that I have used the cards of association is to broaden my horizons. The cards give me a focus for exploring my options. Using a six-part storytelling structure, I can look at a goal from several perspectives, and then decide on one action to take as my next step. I use different decks of cards at different times, depending on which I feel drawn to. Sometimes I shuffle the cards and place them face down before choosing. At other times I like to see which cards I am choosing.
Sitting down with a broad goal in mind, I’ll draw a card that represents who I am as I undertake the journey from here to the place where my goal is achieved. This character doesn’t have to represent me; it doesn’t even have to be a person. Something in the card that I choose will present itself to me as that part of me that is making the journey.
Next, I take a card that helps to clarify some aspect of the goal or dream. I’ve found that most often, it is a quality that I seek more of in my life that emerges, rather than a material objective. Even when the card that I draw doesn’t seem to make much sense, by giving myself permission to move beyond my objections to that card, I can usually see something of value there.
The third card I draw will speak to me about the obstacles that get in the way of me achieving the goal, and the fourth card, the helper or resources available to help me get over, through or around the obstacle.
Having found myself equipped to overcome whatever resistance there is to moving my life forwards, as I look at the fifth card, I ask what I will do, how I will respond to the challenge that I face.
The final card provides a framework for deciding on one action that I will take as I begin the journey towards my goal, or the next stage of it.
I often adapt this framework, but I find it a useful structure for focusing myself on the next step that I choose to take on this journey of my life.
Steven Weir
London, England
Excerpted from original material for the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, 2nd German Edition, by Waltraud Kirschke.
Using the SAGA and MYTHOS decks as a jumping-off point for creativity has proved itself useful time and time again. As a writer, there are times when the words won’t flow and the creative spark is lost. At these times when my creativity is blocked, finding my way back on course is not easy.
Drawing a card from one of these packs allows me to take a step back from the work I am struggling with, and to refresh my mind with the newness of the image I see before me. Even a card that I have drawn and worked with many times before will have new meanings for me with each drawing. The state of mind that I am in will influence the shades of meaning I see, reflecting itself through the subtle overtones of the story that emerges.
The imagery fuels my mind, allowing me to wander into new territories and across unfamiliar terrain. As I allow my imagination free reign to make the associations that it chooses, to see the past or the future through the eyes of the card, I am able, at that moment, to let my mind touch new depths, to discover new possibilities.
Although the story that comes to me from the card may have no clear link to the work I was doing, the process of working with the image changes my thinking so that I am no longer stuck.
As well as using the cards in this way for creative work, I have used them for problem solving. Here, in a similar way, the story that comes from the card or cards will usually have no link to the problem, yet by firing up my creativity, my field of vision expands so that new solutions come into focus. The solutions that emerge are almost a by-product of the story that’s formed. Tapping into the hidden reserves of creativity allows the options to flow, and as they do, solutions present themselves for consideration.
Steven Weir
London, England
Excerpted from original material for the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, 2nd German Edition, by Waltraud Kirschke.
A contributor to the Child Therapy and Mental Health website posted a short article about using various OH genre cards in therapy practice with children. The article, “Associative cards,” was posted by blaxter on December 15, 2008.
Team Training for Leadership
 During the last ten years the “human factor” (that is, acknowledgement of the emotional level) has also gained in consideration in the industrial sector. Emotions, naturally, have a direct influence on achievement as well. It is now acknowledged that a well-functioning team does not hesitate to address conflict and is practised in discussing problems and issues.
We often work with the OH cards in seminars and workshops. Spreading them out on the floor so that everyone can see them, we try to home in on an emotional quality in the participants by asking them each to select a card which corresponds approximately to their feelings at that moment in their current situation. A question at any seminar, for example, could be, “With what feelings did I come here today?” The OH cards present many possibilities in answer to such a question. The associative cards function as a catalyst both for communication and for the experience of closeness among the participants. This feeling of closeness is important because the success of our work as trainers is dependent on the participants opening up during the three or four days they are together – that is, that they reveal themselves more readily than they might in a normal, more formal situation.
Our workshop and seminar participants come from various domains of business, are usually from the industrial or service sectors and are often managers and their assistants – a colourful assortment of people, really, not only from Audi but also from a broad spectrum of the free market economy.
Sometimes I use the SAGA cards as well as the OH cards, especially when the topic is leadership: these images with their figures of highly symbolic characters facilitate a ready comprehension of particular group mechanisms having to do with leadership.
Ralf Linde ~ Trainer for the AUDI Academy
Ingolstadt, Germany
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
Storytelling with Children
 To inspire children to give accounts and tell stories – this was the task I was assigned at the youth centre and school in the Rivierenwijk district of Utrecht. Not only should everyday experiences be related but also short pieces of creative composition, such as stories that are found in picture books, stories with a plot, stories that make sense. This process should give the children, especially the foreign children, a fresh impulse for communication.
Out of this task evolved a storytelling club. Each week ten children between the ages of 7 and 9 met with the aim of composing stories and telling them to one another. A suitcase filled with various objects served as the goldmine of material from which to extract ideas. As we handled and examined the objects we would ask ourselves, “To whom could this object belong and what role could it play in the story?”
The children were delighted. They began to create never-ending stories that eventually did end – in nothing. It was the beginning and the end that posed the problem. The children could not come to grips with a story structure – quite logical, actually. To tell a story by heart presupposes an overall and advance knowledge of the story. The teller has to orient him/herself like a bird in flight; otherwise s/he loses track of the path. For many of the children this proved to be an impossible task. Children experience a story like a film – it unfolds word by word. This can be observed in their experience reports. After school vacation it goes like this: “First we drove to … and then … and then we ….” All the experiences are stored in the memory chronologically. The only way to recapitulate it is to tell it in the correct chronological sequence.
 When I realized this, I wondered how I could give them the necessary signposts for orienting themselves within their stories. For this, I got some help from the philosopher of Greek antiquity, Aristotle. In his “Poetica” he stipulated the structure of the story to comprise five main parts:
- introduction
- incitement of the plot
- climax of the plot
- fading out of the plot
- conclusion
I had found my signposts! For the children it would be possible to simplify this somewhat:
- on the way to the incitement of the plot by making introductions
- on the way to the climax
- marching toward the end
I wanted to introduce the children to these points of orientation, but a lesson on the ancient Greeks was out of the question! The subject must be approached in as lively a manner as possible. At this point I considered the possibilities for using SAGA. With only three cards it would be possible to set the decisive milestones for orienting the story:
introduction - plot impetus – on to climax – climax - on to the end – end
It almost worked. Story structure stood tangibly before the children’s eyes. (For me the only thing missing at this point were SAGA images in large format.) They were able to “read” the details directly from the pictures. It was possible to use the picture cards as notes or “cheat-sheets,” so to speak.
 Yet the final image proved to be problematical. Although it was fairly easy for the children to put together a story from the first two images, the last picture restricted them. It represented a prison for the imagination. Although necessary for the structure of the story, in composing stories independently this picture seemed to act as a barrier. Once again, logical: a prescribed ending to a story presupposes an overview. For the children the situation was like a topography: if your task is to get from your own house to Berlin but you only know the streets as far as the town limits, then the rest of the way is like a black hole that can only be filled in by a general map.
The solution to this problem, however, proved to be simple. The final image would be created by the children themselves, after they composed the conclusion to the story. (Author’s note: suitable here are the CLARO cards, which are meant to be designed by the user!) Based on what I have just outlined, we finally developed our approach for the storytelling club. During the initial phase the children practiced creating stories based on objects. In the second phase the SAGA cards were introduced. The children were divided into groups (two to three participants), each receiving two pictures and one object. The pictures were to mark the plot impetus and climax of the story, with the object taking on some significance during its development. The stories, usually short, were written down and the last image painted.
This approach would be practiced several times in varying groups. The main focus, during phase three, was on turning these mini-plots into real stories, to be told in a detailed and understandable way. In order to function as points of orientation for the children, the pictures, in the manner of an “oh! experience,” must stimulate the memory at the relevant points in the story. It was therefore important that these “oh! experiences” be as vivid as possible.
 However, the pictures didn’t automatically stimulate this response. For the children the images were just pictures from the SAGA deck until the necessary connection between picture and story was established by acting out the story, the most important structural points being the plot impetus, the climax and the conclusion. The dramatised scenes were linked to one another by the SAGA images. As soon as the structure became clear, the story would be practised once again, this time with the pictures laid out on the floor.
After practising like this the children would remember the story without having to memorise it. It was even possible to improvise on the story with the structure firmly established in this way. And so with the help of Aristotle and SAGA it was possible for us to animate children to storytelling!
Marco Holmer ~ Storyteller and member of the Utrecht Storyteller Group
Utrecht, Holland
Excerpted from the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, by Waltraud Kirschke.
Card images are from the SAGA deck.
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