Hey there! I'm Shannon - a licensed psychotherapist in private practice who also happens to love tarot. Each episode I work to demystify tarot and explore its connections to mental and emotional health while implementing its inherently helpful tools to better understand ourselves and those around us. Join me as I unravel common struggles related to our behavior, thought patterns, emotions, and relationships while pulling cards to facilitate growth and to help create the life and relationships we all desire.
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The Ashamed Child: Childhood Wounds, Relationships & the Nine of Wands
Sunday, October 18, 2026 • Duration 32:10
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m exploring the psychology of shame, childhood wounds, and how our earliest experiences shape the way we show up in adult relationships - all through the lens of tarot.
This episode was inspired by Come Closer by psychoanalyst Dr. Galit Atlas, a book I recently devoured in two days and immediately started recommending to anyone who would listen. Atlas explores six childhood wounds and how they influence our experiences of love, intimacy, and relationships. And, naturally, as I was reading, I couldn't stop thinking about which tarot archetypes might represent these wounds.
In this episode, I focus on one specific childhood wound - the ashamed childhood wound (if you want me to explore more of these, please let me know!), and the card that immediately came to mind was the Nine of Wands. I know, not what we might traditionally think about, but I have my reasons, and you’ll have to listen to find out why I chose this card.
The Nine of Wands acts as an anchor as I explore how childhood experiences of criticism, rejection, humiliation, and conditional love can sometimes manifest as perfectionism, hypervigilance, self-criticism, emotional withdrawal, and defensiveness in adult relationships. I also look at the ways we sometimes reject ourselves before anyone else has the opportunity to as a form of self-protection. Think self-deprecating humor or when we point out our own flaws as a way to maintain control over how others perceive us.
And then I get into the fascinating (and painful) contradiction of the ashamed child: desperately wanting connection while simultaneously constructing defenses that make connection difficult.
I also bring in the Empress, but rather than exploring her through traditional maternal or nurturing symbolism, I consider her as an archetype of softness. What might it look like to offer ourselves a little less criticism and a little more tenderness, especially when we're carrying wounds that have made us feel fundamentally unworthy?
Finally, I created a three card therapeutic tarot spread to explore our internalized critical voices, where they may have originated, and what practicing softness with ourselves might look like.
Ultimately, this episode is an exploration of shame, attachment, self-worth, emotional defenses, and the possibility of developing a more compassionate relationship with ourselves. It’s also about discovering that sometimes the voice telling us we're not good enough isn't actually ours.
Exciting Announcement!
It’s here! My 2027 year-long tarot journal is now available (digital version forthcoming). We are stepping into an archetypal Justice year and to accompany Justice is the High Priestess and…The Fool. I had fun playing with numbers this year and decided to SUBTRACT instead of just ADD when it comes to numerology, which is how The Fool found itself amidst these pages. You’ll have to get the journal to see why I decided to subtract and what I think that might mean…
Grab A Year with Justicehere! (Please note this journal is also available in pretty much every other country. This link takes you to the US site, but on your home site, just search for the title of the book plus my name and it should pop right up.)
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
Who are You Around Other People: A Collective Tarot Reading
Sunday, October 4, 2026 • Duration 27:01
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m pulling cards for our collective monthly tarot reading for October and this month, we’re exploring the psychological space between who we’ve been and who we might be becoming.
For this October tarot reading, I’m revisiting a spread I originally created for my Tarot as a Transitional Object workshop, inspired by psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s theories of transitional objects, transitional phenomena, and transitional space. Winnicott was interested in the psychological territory between our internal and external realities, which he viewed as the space where play, creativity, experimentation, and growth occur. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I think tarot fits beautifully within that space.
Tarot can become a bridge between what’s happening inside of us and what exists outside of us - where we bring our memories, projections, emotions, desires, fears, and relationships to the cards, while the cards still simultaneously exist separately from us. In Winnicott’s language, they are both “me” and “not me.”
Pulling the Hierophant, Three of Cups, and Queen of Wands, I explore what we may be carrying out of September, what October is inviting us to examine, and what we can lean on as we move between the two months.
Representing September, TheHierophant invites us to look at some of the systems, beliefs, expectations, traditions, or rules that we’ve inherited and perpetuated - even when they maybe have outstayed their welcome. Then the Three of Cups turns our attention toward relationships and personal identity. Rather than only viewing this card through its traditional lens of friendship and celebration, I explore it as a kind of relational mirror (ie. who are we around other people?). Finally, the Queen of Wands becomes our bridge between September and October, functioning as a reminder of our personal agency, creativity, confidence, self-trust, and our core Self.
When to Pull Clarifying Tarot Cards & When you Shouldn't
Sunday, September 20, 2026 • Duration 23:29
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis podcast, I’m exploring tarot clarifiers and a question I don’t think we ask often enough: Why are we pulling clarifying cards if we already understand the card in front of us?
This episode came about unexpectedly after I pulled the Seven of Wands during my weekly tarot practice and immediately felt my body reaching for the deck again. But I already knew what the card meant and more importantly, I knew what it meant to me. I didn’t actually need more information. Eventually, I realized I was reaching for distance because the card made me uncomfortable and I wanted to get rid of that feeling ASAP.
That moment got me thinking about how often this might be happening in your practice. So, I recorded an impromptu podcast about it.
Throughout the episode, I explore how pulling tarot clarifiers can sometimes become a form of reassurance seeking or avoidance, especially when one clarifier becomes another and another until we finally find a card that gives us the interpretation we were hoping for. I also look at confirmation bias and how pulling more cards can give us more opportunities to find evidence for the narrative we already know/want to believe. Both things to be aware/ cautious of.
But this isn’t an argument against clarifiers - I promise. Clarifying cards can add valuable context to a tarot reading - especially when we’re developing our ability to read cards in relationship with one another. So I’m more interested in what our impulse to pull another card is telling us - versus the act of pulling a clarifier.
I also explore tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty when using tarot. Like what happens when, instead of immediately resolving the tension a card creates, we allow ourselves to sit with it for a moment?
The Courage to Become: A Monthly Tarot Reading
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • Duration 27:07
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m back with another collective monthly tarot reading, and for September, I’m exploring The Courage to Become, which is a four card tarot spread I originally created around identity, existentialism, and the often uncomfortable process of growth and change.
Spoiler: Apparently, September is the month of Pentacles - I’ve been pulling them personally and three of them show up in the reading!
Pulling the Knight of Pentacles, Six of Cups, Page of Pentacles, and Six of Pentacles, I explore who we may be becoming collectively, what frightens us about that transformation, what makes it exciting, and what remaining exactly as we are might ultimately deny us.
The Knight of Pentacles kicks us off and I end up spending quite a bit of time with this knight, so if you struggle with this card, I hope this is a helpful episode for you. I also explore how in a culture that rewards urgency, immediacy, productivity, and reactivity, this Knight asks us to slow down and be intentional about where we focus our attention. I touch on the importance of responding vs reacting, and why being strategic and willing to tolerate uncertainty may be our own form of resistance.
I also infuse the existential psychology of Rollo May and Erich Fromm, particularly their ideas around courage, freedom, responsibility, identity, and the anxiety that accompanies getting to choose who we want to become. Fromm says that freedom sounds wonderful until we realize it also means that we have to accept responsibility for our choices and I think the Knight of Pentacles is well aware of that.
Next, the Six of Cups brings us directly into our relationship with nostalgia and the safety of familiarity - a cute nod to our 200th episode about nostalgia previously. This card asks us, if we’re becoming something new, how do we make sure we aren’t also just recreating a new version of the past? I explore why familiarity can feel safer than freedom, how nostalgia can pull us toward old identities and systems, and the distinction between being shaped by our history vs repeating it.
The Nostalgia Effect: Behind the Scenes of 200 Episodes
Sunday, August 30, 2026 • Duration 57:07
In this special episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m celebrating 200 episodes with someone who has quite literally been behind the scenes since the very beginning: my cousin and the podcast’s audio engineer, Anthony DiGiacomo.
Anthony and I grew up together - our moms are identical twins, we lived a few blocks apart, went to the same schools, and spent our teenage years immersed in the local music scene. So, naturally, a conversation celebrating the history of the podcast turned into a much bigger exploration of something the two of us talk about all the time: nostalgia.
Nostalgia is such a fascinating psychological and dialectical experience because it holds two seemingly contradictory emotions at once. It can feel comforting and painful, connecting and isolating, joyful and grief-filled all at the same time.
While tarot doesn’t show up right away, I promise we talk cards! For example:
We explore the Six of Cups as the traditional archetype of nostalgia, but I also look at Temperance as a surprisingly powerful representation of what healthy nostalgia requires: allowing ourselves to dip into the emotional waters of the past while keeping one foot firmly planted in the present. We also explore the Knight of Wands and Two of Wands through identity, longing, and the tension between honoring who we once were and continuing to move forward.
Anthony and I also get into the psychology of why nostalgia has become so culturally prominent. We talk about social media, disappearing shopping malls, old video games, concerts, neon signs, the increasingly beige and gray aesthetics of modern life, and anemoia - the experience of feeling nostalgic for a time or place we never actually experienced.
And we also talk about how nostalgia has a very dark, shadow side too. Because memory is inherently imperfect, the past can become romanticized. We can convince ourselves that life used to be better, safer, simpler, or more meaningful while forgetting the painful parts of those same periods. Anthony and I discuss how that vulnerability can be exploited through , including political and cultural narratives that promise a return to an idealized past that may have never have actually existed in the way it’s sold to us.
What is Self-Sabotage Protecting you From?
Sunday, August 16, 2026 • Duration 29:54
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m exploring self-sabotage through a psychological and therapeutic tarot lens and challenging the idea that self-sabotage means we’re just getting in our own way.
We tend to label procrastination, avoidance, staying in unhealthy relationships, overworking, turning down opportunities, or repeating painful patterns as self-sabotage. And when we notice ourselves doing these things, we tend to ask the same question: Why do I keep doing this to myself?
But I think there’s a different question that actually might help us better understand our own self-sabotage: What is this behavior trying to accomplish? Or, what purpose does it serve?
Because from a therapeutic perspective, every behavior usually has some sort of function that benefits us. Even behaviors that eventually hurt us may have developed because, at some point, they helped us avoid anxiety, rejection, shame, uncertainty, vulnerability, abandonment, or failure. In other words, what looks like self-sabotage may actually be an attempt at self-protection.
I explore all of this through psychodynamic theory, attachment theory, behavioral psychology, schema therapy, and, of course, tarot. I talk about Freud’s concepts of Eros and Thanatos, repetition of painful experiences, how attachment can make those old, but familiar patterns feel safer than healthier, unfamiliar possibilities, and why avoidance and procrastination work so well in the short term, even though they often create bigger problems later.
And then I bring in The World, the card that completely changed the direction of this episode. I initially resisted seeing The World as a card of self-sabotage, but the protective wreath surrounding the figure helped me recognize something important: sometimes the boundaries we construct to keep ourselves safe become a barrier that prevents us from experiencing something new, and that might end up being exactly what we need for growth.
Collective Reading: The Tension of Opposites & Dialectical Behavior Theories in Tarot
Sunday, August 2, 2026 • Duration 28:16
In this month's collective tarot reading on The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, I explore one of my favorite concepts from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): the idea that two seemingly opposite truths can exist at the same time.
Inspired by the emotional chaos of Mercury retrograde (but designed to be relevant no matter what's happening in your life) I use my Tension of Opposites tarot spread (below) to explore how we can stop searching for certainty and instead widen our capacity to hold ambiguity, complexity, and contradictions.
Throughout this collective, DBT-inspired reading, I weave together tarot, psychology, parts work, and dialectics as I explore how learning to tolerate emotional tensions can become one of our greatest sources of growth and strength - all through the High Priestess, Empress, Ace of Cups, and Three of Cups.
Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to stop searching for a single "right" answer. Tarot doesn't always ask us to choose between opposing experiences, it often asks what it can look like to hold opposition with curiosity, compassion, and flexibility.
I hope you enjoy this unscripted, nerdy, and compassionate musing of tensions of opposites.
Why We Seek Love Where It Can't Be found: Tarot & Emotional Investment
Sunday, July 19, 2026 • Duration 32:32
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, I ask: What actually deserves our emotional investment?
This question, inspired by pulling the Ace of Cups and King of Cups, became the starting point for this episode and a much deeper exploration of why we emotionally invest in certain people, relationships, friendships, jobs, and family dynamics even when those investments leave us feeling depleted.
Drawing from psychodynamic theory, attachment theory, and Parts Work, I explore why we unconsciously recreate familiar emotional patterns - often hoping that this time we'll finally receive the love, validation, consistency, or emotional safety we didn't receive before. Unfortunately, those old wounds can keep us emotionally invested in relationships that repeatedly fail to meet our needs.
In this episode, I take you on an emotionally invested journey into:
Why we unconsciously invest in emotionally unavailable people
The connection between attachment, emotional investment, and relationship patterns
How the King of Cups reflects emotional maturity, identity, and healthy boundaries
Why leaving painful relationships often feels like losing part of ourselves
The psychology behind the sunken cost fallacy and why it keeps us stuck
How intermittent reinforcement strengthens unhealthy emotional attachments
Why seeing an ex-partner become emotionally available can feel so devastating
The difference between loving someone and organizing your identity around them
I also pull a three-card therapeutic tarot spread (below) to explore the parts of ourselves that remain emotionally invested even after a relationship has stopped nourishing us. Using the , , and , I examine the inner child, people-pleasing, self-worth, differentiation, and reclaiming our identity.
The Ugly Phase: A Philosophical Exploration of Disorientation & Tarot
Sunday, July 5, 2026 • Duration 39:53
On this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I discuss how I believe we are collectively living through one of the most significant periods of disorientation in modern history. Between political upheaval, personal and collective loss, illness, trauma, and rapid cultural, religious, and spiritual change, many of us are finding ourselves in the liminal, and trying desperately to claw out of it.
But…what if we’re not supposed to leave right away? What if there is something to gain from existing in this space of disorientation, so when we do find our way to the other side, we feel better equipped to navigate what lies ahead.
In this episode, I explore the psychology and philosophy of disorientation through the work of philosopher Ami Harbin and consider what happens when we stop trying to rush toward certainty, the next experience, or healing. Rather than treating confusion and discomfort as something to fix, I mirror Harbin’s philosophy and ask whether periods of uncertainty might actually become some of the most meaningful experiences of our lives.
From both a psychotherapeutic and tarot perspective, I examine why cards like The Tower and Five of Cups often invite us to remain in the discomfort instead of immediately searching for solutions and what if grief, disruption, and uncertainty aren't interruptions to growth that need to quickly be remedied, but instead a necessary process for growth.
I also share a three-card "Reorientation" tarot spread for the collective inspired by Harbin's work. Together we explore where we currently feel disoriented, what opportunities for growth exist within that uncertainty, and how these experiences may be reshaping our identities through The Tower, King of Wands, and The Chariot. (Yes, I actually pulled The Tower for card one. And no, I cannot believe it.)
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: An Archetypal Reflection with Tarot
Sunday, June 14, 2026 • Duration 37:54
Personal note before you listen:To be honest, I sat on this episode for weeks. I almost didn’t share it - mainly because it felt too honest, too personal, too vulnerable. And I think there was a part of me that felt guilty. Despite the hesitation, here it is…
In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I explore what it means to be an adult child of emotionally immature parents and how tarot can help us understand the roles, defenses, wounds, and longings that form in emotionally unpredictable homes.
This conversation was inspired by my recent re-read of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson, as well as my own lived experience. I talk about the painful developmental moment when we realize our parents are not all-knowing, all-capable figures, but full, flawed, historically shaped human beings. When moving through the deck, I realized this experience mimicked The Hierophant (reversed) - that unsettling, yet necessary unseating of a caregiver from the archetypal throne of perceived perfection and safety.
From there, I explore how tarot became a safe, symbolic language for me and a tool that helped me piece together fragments of my upbringing, access unconscious material, and create a more coherent personal narrative…without overwhelming my nervous system in the process.
I explore what feels like all the cards in this episode:
The Moon
The Hanged Man
The Devil
The Star
The Five of Cups
The Nine of Cups
The Seven of Wands
The Eight of Pentacles
October itself feels like a fitting month for this kind of work: liminal, shadowy, and transitional. I hope the month is treating you well and that you’re giving and receiving all the witchy tarot nourishment!
As always, let me know what cards you pull alongside me, or what came up for you in your own pull.
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
Using my reaction to the Seven of Wands, I walk through how I resisted pulling a clarifier and instead explored my initial defensiveness and discomfort. That shift allowed me to practice dialectical thinking by asking what else could simultaneously be true, without bypassing the initial feelings. This then brought up a fun fact about film composition and how we can apply that to tarot.
Ultimately, this episode isn’t about whether you should or shouldn’t pull tarot clarifiers. It’s more about encouraging curiosity about why you’re reaching for a clarifying card in the first place.
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
The Page of Pentacles then offers us some hope by giving us permission to embrace beginners' energy. We don’t have to know exactly what comes next because how fortunate are we that we get to experiment, question, learn, and participate in the ongoing act of creating ourselves.
Finally, the Six of Pentacles turns our attention toward reciprocity, community, and highlights our individualistic collective culture. This card asks us: what is our hyper-independence costing us? And what would life look like if we embraced individuality without abandoning our communities?
This September tarot reading ultimately became an exploration of identity, existential psychology, community, nostalgia, uncertainty, and the courage to become something we’ve never been before. The cards suggest that it’s about being willing to move toward the future intentionally, remaining curious about what we’re creating, and resisting the noise to pull back from collective support.
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
We also talk about nostalgia and grief and how reminiscing can simultaneously remind us of someone’s absence while helping us maintain a relationship with them after they’re gone.
Ultimately, I think nostalgia asks us to practice being in a kind of dialectical both/and space: How do we honor the past without trying to live there? How do we stay connected to previous versions of ourselves without allowing them to determine who we become next?
And I think that’s part of what celebrating 200 episodes means for me, too. I get to look backward at everything this podcast has become, appreciate the people and experiences that helped create it, and still remain incredibly curious about where we go from here.
On a more personal note to the listeners: Thank you for being here, whether you’ve listened since episode one or just recently discovered The Tarot Diagnosis - knowing you find value here means so much to me. Cheers to the next 200!
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
From there, I explore several tarot cards as different manifestations of self-sabotage and self-protection, including:
Four of Pentacles as clinging to familiar identities, relationships, and ways of living
Five of Pentacles as rejecting ourselves before someone else rejects us
The Devil as remaining attached to familiar beliefs and behavioral patterns
Seven and Eight of Cups as the overwhelm & uncertainty inherent in choosing something new
Seven through Ten of Swords as an escalating psychological progression of avoidance, limiting beliefs, anxiety, and collapse
The Tower as what happens when an old protective strategy can no longer sustain itself
Ten of Wands as over-functioning, overachieving, over-planning, and carrying everything ourselves so no one else gets the opportunity to disappoint us
The Ten of Wands ultimately brings me back to what I think is one of the most important ideas in this episode: eventually, the thing that was supposed to protect us can become the thing that burdens us. So rather than shaming ourselves for procrastinating, avoiding, over-functioning, choosing familiar patterns, or seemingly getting in our own way, I’m interested in getting curious about the function underneath the behavior.
Maybe we stop asking: Why am I sabotaging myself?
And instead ask: What is this behavior protecting me from and do I still need that protection?
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
Instead of wondering whether someone else will finally change, I invite you to explore what becomes possible when you stop organizing your life around earning their love and begin investing in the version of yourself that has always been worthy of receiving love from anyone.
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
I also spend time with the court cards as family roles and survival strategies. The Kings and Queens become emotionally immature parent archetypes: the rigid parent, the volatile parent, the misattuned sensitive parent, and the practical caregiver who confuses provision with emotional connection. The Knights and Pages become the children shaped by those dynamics: the fixer, the family therapist, the old soul, the strategist, the overachiever, the silenced creative child, the emotional caretaker, and the overanalyzer.
Ultimately, this episode is about how tarot can help us see the patterns we inherited without making those patterns the end of our story. If you felt love was conditional, your emotional needs were too much, or that safety depended on managing everyone else’s moods and feelings, this episode offers a gentle but honest reflection on what you endured and what you are still allowed to become.
Want more of this type of tarot experience?
Join us at the Summer Solstice Summit - a three day, virtual tarot conference June 26-28. Grab your ticket here and use code TAROTPOD15 to get 15% off! https://www.thetarotdiagnosis.com/summersolstice
👥 Join The Symposium — my tarot & psychology membership community
If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!
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