I want to share another use of the IconiCards in a university environment. I previously posted a note here about using them in my Myth, Drean, & Symbol class to help students explore their relationship to their own Introversion and Extraversion.
Today, I was an invited guest in a University class on Careers in Psychology. I had been invited to discuss non-traditional careers, careers outside of psychology per se for those with a degree in it.
To kick things off, I spread the IconiCards face up, in several concentric circles. I invited students to walk around the circle and allow two cards to choose them– one representing their hopes/feelings in an ideal career and the other signifying their worst fears/feelings in relation to their work future. They were asked to return to their seats with their two cards and list 5 adjectives for each card and to write an “I” statement for each of the ten adjectives and each “I” statement should include one of the adjectives (e.g. “I’m afraid of getting locked into a BORING job”).
In a flash of inspiration, I also suggested that they could use their cell phones to take a picture of their cards for further reflection after class. A number of them took advantage of this suggestion.
I then had students share their cards and what they had written in pairs. After that, I did a debrief in the large group. Cards representing their best career aspirations included: God, Leader, Storyteller, Artist, Cheerleader, and Mediator. On the other hand, their career fears were captured in such cards as: Slave Driver, Victim, Beggar, and Robot. And, of course, they shared a number of evocative adjectives and sentences for each of these.
From there, I was able to segue into telling them about the how the IconiCards came to be developed and about Sharon and Glenn Livingston as two psychologists who are plying their skills and psychological expertise in domains outside of the traditional roles of therapist, professor, or academic researcher. And, of course, I went on to talk about my own very diverse career, as well, including my Shrink Rap Radio and Wise Counsel podcasts.
David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
www.e-FocusGroups.com
I used the IconiCards today in an upper-division, undergraduate university class I’m teaching: Seminar on Myth, Dream, & Symbol. I had one of my Teaching Assistants give a presentation on Carl Jung’s typology (Introvert/Extravert: Feeling/Thinking, Sensation/Intuition). After she finished with the cognitive part of the presentation, I spread the entire IconiCard deck face-up on the floor in three large concentric circles. Students were instructed to silently walk around the circle and allow two cards to “choose them.” One card would represent their Extraverted side and the other their Introverted side.
I’m coming from the notion that we each have both introverted and extroverted sides to ourselves. One or the other may be more prominent depending upon situation in which we find ourselves.
Next, I asked my students to silently pick up their two cards and return to their chairs and, using pen and paper, dialog with each of their two cards around the following questions: 1. What is your strength? (i.e. how does this archetypal quality support me, contribute to my success, etc.) 2. What is your vulnerability? (i.e. what is the downside of this quality in my life, where does it trip me up, etc.) 3. What is your future potential? (i.e. as I grow and the quality represented by this card reaches it’s fullest and best realization in my life, what might that look like?) Students had about 10 minutes or so to dialogue on paper. They then were instructed to divide into trios and to share with one another. After a lot of animated sharing, I called them back to the larger circle and invited some feedback about the process. They all agreed this was an excellent “ice breaker” and a great way to get to know other students in the class and to be more comfortable with them. Then several shared the details of their work with their two cards. For example, I believe one young woman chose Troublemaker for her extraverted side and Hermit for her introverted side. She was able to talk very meaningfully about the upside and downside of both of these qualities in her life, and how they might ideally manifest in her life when they came to full flower. Later on in the course, I’ll be exposing them to some traditional Tarot decks. However, I felt that the IconiCard deck would be a very non-threatening, non-strange way to introduce them to the symbolic/archetypal domain. And, it also served as a vehicle to experientially concretize the concepts of Introversion/Extraversion.
Not exactly a market research application but certainly another validation of the effectiveness of the IconiCards to evoke deeply meaningful material.
Thanks, Sharon!
David
David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
www.e-FocusGroups.com
www.ShrinkRapRadio.com
www.WiseCounselPodcast.com
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