The origins of Psycards

The dream

Psycards were invented by Nick Hobson – they came to him in a dream.

The dream came to him at a point in his life when he was going through a huge amount of personal pain and turmoil. In his own words:

"I was, as it were, on a high place, looking down on my own life, and could see all the elements that had made me what I was, set out separately: the influences of my family, my background, my education, my friends, my fears, my hopes, my failures, spread out before me like fields in the plain below... The feeling I had was one of peace and control; it was my life, and comprehensible."

On awakening, Nick created Psycards to help others who were experiencing personal difficulty to achieve the perspective – and peace – which he was able to feel in his dream.

The heritage of Psycards

The Psycards System draws on psychoanalysis and poetry. It is closely linked to Jungian psychology, and in particular, Karl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious: namely that we all share a common "residue" of humanity's experience, in the form of archaic images and symbols, revealed in threads of stories and poetry told throughout history and cultures. These threads and echoes shape the way we experience and engage with those around us. These shared, unconscious memories are archetypes – a number of the Psycards expressly symbolise specific Jungian archtectypes.

Because we all share the same collective unconscious, each of us can easily relate and respond to the images on each card. Of course, the way we respond won't all be the same – it will be mediated by our own personal memories and our individual natures. However, the familiarity of the different symbols, and the vivid images, make the Psycards powerful tools for our psyches to connect to and start working with, even for people new to Psycards.