Tarot Cards and Mental Health

The search for peace of mind is leading more people to unexpected places, like the quiet clarity found in a simple deck of tarot cards.

For Jessica Dore, tarot isn’t about predicting the future or putting on a mystical show. It’s a way to help people sit with themselves, slow down, and really look at what’s going on beneath the surface. A former social worker with a deep background in mental health, Jessica has spent years blending therapeutic insight with symbolic language. Her daily tarot messages on Twitter have built a following of over 100,000 people who tune in not for magic tricks, but for grounded reflections that speak to real-life struggles.

One of her posts reads like a gentle wake-up call: “It can only be you that sets the cost of your energy… Even good, lovely, respectful people will low-ball you because there will always be someone who wants more for less. Hold firm.”

That’s the tone Jessica is known for: honest, direct, and rooted in self-worth.

When she works with clients one-on-one, she avoids calling them “readings.” That word, she says, implies the person on the other end is just there to receive, not engage. What she’s offering is more of a shared space, like part reflection, part guidance, part personal inventory.

“I don’t call it therapy, but I do think what we do in these sessions can feel therapeutic,” she explains. “If it helps someone show up better in their own life, if it makes things just a little lighter, then that matters.”

Living in Philadelphia, Jessica uses her background in social work and psychology to shape these sessions in a way that feels real, relatable, and safe. She knows not everyone has access to traditional therapy, and that’s part of what drives her. “If you can’t afford to sit on a therapist’s couch, maybe sitting with a deck of cards and a little intention can still help you feel seen.”

Jessica’s process usually starts with a question. Not a grand, cosmic one, something practical, emotional, grounded in everyday life. From there, a single card becomes the anchor for a deeper conversation. Symbols turn into metaphors. Emotions get names. And people start to feel a little less alone in whatever they’re moving through.

She doesn’t offer answers. She offers reflection, and in today’s world, that might be the most healing thing of all.

Mental Health and Tarot

Jessica Dore’s work lives in the space between inner healing and symbolic reflection, where a deck of tarot cards becomes more like a conversation starter than a fortune-telling device.

She doesn’t claim to predict the future. What she offers is more grounded, like a way to pause, reflect, and shift perspective. “Most people think tarot is about someone flipping cards and giving you answers,” she says. “But that’s not what I do. I’m here to help someone explore their own answers, using the cards as a jumping-off point.”

Her sessions, usually done over Skype, start with a simple question: What brought you here today? That question alone can unlock a lot. From there, she lays out ten cards and sends the client a photo of the spread. What follows isn’t a reading, but it’s a real-time dialogue. One card might bring up a pattern, a worry, or a memory. Jessica doesn’t tell people what the card means; she asks them what it means.

It’s collaborative. Personal. Less about magic, more about meaning.

“What shows up in the cards often stirs something inside the person,” she explains. “You don’t have to know the official interpretation. It’s kind of like a Rorschach test. What do you see? What does this image bring up for you?”

That’s where the connection to mental health comes in. The images, the archetypes, the symbols, they speak a quiet language that can bypass the mind’s usual defenses. Fairy tales, myths, and old stories live in those cards, and that familiarity creates a feeling of safety, even wonder.

“It’s a break from the usual routine,” Jessica says. “It’s not therapy, but it opens up new ways of seeing. And in that space, people can often loosen their grip on rigid stories they’ve been telling themselves.

At the end of the day, people want to feel seen. Tarot, when approached with care, can be a tool for exactly that.

Pulling a Random Card

People often ask how pulling random tarot cards can say anything meaningful about their lives. Jessica Dore thinks the randomness is actually part of the magic.

“There’s something kind of wild about how the right card always seems to show up,” she says. “People look at it and go, ‘How is this so spot on?’”

But it’s not really about the future; it’s about the language the cards speak. Each one holds symbols and archetypes that connect to common human experiences. Love, grief, transition, fear, hope, it’s all there. So even when drawn at random, the images almost always reflect something you’re moving through.

The therapeutic part, Jessica says, comes from what those cards help people face. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re avoiding our feelings until something holds up a mirror. And that’s what a tarot card can do, gently reflecting what’s going on underneath the surface.

“When we don’t let ourselves feel certain emotions, we can stay stuck in patterns without knowing why,” she explains. “The cards help people explore why they’re making the choices they’re making, where anxiety might be showing up, and how avoidance could be steering their behavior.”

And there’s another layer too, the simple comfort of feeling seen. Pull a card in a moment of overwhelm, search its meaning online, and suddenly you’re reading words that describe exactly what you’re going through. That moment of recognition can be powerful.

“It’s kind of like reading a novel where the character is going through something just like you,” Jessica says. “It helps you feel less alone.”

Tarot, in that way, doesn’t just offer insight. It offers a connection to yourself, to your feelings, and to something a little bigger than logic.

Skeptics

When asked how she responds to skeptics who think tarot is just fortune telling, Jessica doesn’t get defensive. “I get it,” she says. “We all build associations in our minds, that’s just how we’re wired.”

She knows that for a lot of people, the word tarot brings up images of crystal balls and spooky predictions. But she invites people to see it differently. “There are more ways to use something than we might expect. Just because it’s been used one way in the past doesn’t mean that’s the only way it can work now.”

For Jessica, the cards aren’t about predicting the future. They’re about holding space for reflection. “Some people see them as spiritual tools. Others see them as cards with pictures. For me, they’re something you can use to understand yourself a little better.”

She believes there’s room for new ways of working with old tools, especially in a world that’s craving more meaning and self-awareness. “It’s okay to let things evolve,” she says. “Tarot can be more than one thing. It just depends on how you use it.”

Final Thoughts

In the end, Jessica isn’t trying to convince anyone to believe in magic. She’s more interested in helping people feel grounded, seen, and supported. Whether someone views the cards as meaningful or just images on paper doesn’t really matter. What matters is what they stir up, the conversations they spark, the feelings they surface, and the small ways they help people reconnect with themselves. That, she says, is where the real power lies.