Many psychological tools ask you to talk and think analytically about yourself. The MARI Card Test at Corrales Grief Spa takes a different approach: it asks your unconscious to show up and speak for itself.
That distinction matters more than it might seem, especially when you’re navigating loss, transition, or uncertainty about who you are on the other side of something that changed you.
What is the MARI card test?
The Mandala Assessment Research Instrument, MARI, is a nonverbal psychological assessment developed by art therapist Joan Kellogg beginning in the 1970s at the University of Maryland, where she worked alongside some of the most significant figures in transpersonal psychology research, including Dr. Stanislav Grof. Kellogg refined the instrument over decades and formally established it as the MARI Card Test in 1984, with the final revision completed in 1993.
The assessment includes 39 symbol cards and 45 color cards. The symbol cards are displayed first in random order, and the person is asked to choose six symbol cards they are most attracted to, one they are least attracted to. They are then asked to choose colors that correspond to the symbols they selected.
What makes this remarkable is what happens with that information. When displayed on the developmental template of the Great Round, which is Kellogg’s framework of 13 archetypal stages of psychological development, the symbols and colors chosen intuitively reveal a visual picture of one’s psyche. The choices aren’t random. Symbols predate culture, language, and even the concept of time. They are so much a part of us that we respond to them intuitively and often on an other-than-conscious level.
The MARI Assessment and the Drawn Mandala are innovative, creative, and expressive tools that provide diagnostic information and can also be used to reinforce and track client progress. These tools have been used by mental health practitioners, personal and business coaches, art therapists, and music therapists for over 30 years.
A peer-reviewed study published in the journal Arts in Psychotherapy compared MARI Card Test results across cardiac and cancer inpatient populations, demonstrating its utility as a clinical instrument across a range of health and emotional conditions. Kellogg’s foundational 1977 paper in the American Journal of Art Therapy, co-authored with Mac Rae, Bonny, and DiLeo, laid the research groundwork that practitioners have built on ever since.
The assessment is not therapy in the traditional sense. It is a process using both left and right brain thinking, with the client as the guide in leading the discovery. It accesses what talk therapy often cannot—the information that lies beneath verbal processing, in image and symbol and the gut-level pull of a card you couldn’t explain but couldn’t put down.
Why It’s Especially Powerful During Times of Loss and Transition
Grief and transition share a common quality that makes them both fascinating and exhausting: they strip away the stories we’ve told about ourselves and leave us standing in territory we don’t have a map for yet.
Words can feel inadequate during those moments, not because we lack intelligence or self-awareness, but because what’s happening in us is genuinely pre-verbal. The loss of a spouse, the end of a marriage, a diagnosis, a death, a shifting identity—these experiences register in the body and psyche at a level that conversation alone rarely reaches.
This is precisely where the MARI Card Test earns its place. The MARI is an excellent therapeutic tool that maps the present state of the psyche and gives the subject a direction that will lead to movement, evolution, integration, illumination, and transformation—a true alchemy of the soul. During periods of transition, that kind of mapping can be a compass.
The assessment doesn’t tell you what to do. It reflects back what your own unconscious is already working with, including the themes that arise, the challenges you’re processing, and the opportunities that form beneath the surface of conscious awareness. For someone in the middle of figuring out what comes next, this kind of unfiltered reflection can be quietly staggering.
What Clients at Corrales Grief Spa Have Experienced
Clients who have worked with the MARI Card Test during sessions at Corrales Grief Spa have reported experiences that go beyond what they anticipated from a card-based assessment.
One client notes an increase in lucid dreaming following their sessions—a phenomenon that aligns with what practitioners have long observed: when unconscious material is brought into conscious awareness through symbol work, the psyche often becomes more active and communicative through the dream state. The dialogue, once opened, doesn’t close when you leave the room.
Others have described a clarity around the patterns and themes arising in their lives—challenges that had felt confusing or overwhelming became identifiable, even nameable, through the images they were drawn to. That naming alone can shift your understanding. When you can see the shape of what you’re carrying, you begin to know where to put it down.
Perhaps most consistently, clients describe a deepened trust in their own intuitive knowing. The MARI Card Test doesn’t reward the thinking mind; it rewards the part of you that already knows. Clients who feel cut off from that intuitive knowledge by grief, shock, or the sheer cognitive load of navigating loss often find it through symbol work in ways that talking simply doesn’t reach.
Coming to It in the Right Moment
The MARI Card Test is available as part of Kristy’s practice at Corrales Grief Spa at The Oasis, offered during individual sessions or as part of a broader retreat experience. It is particularly well-suited to moments of transition: following a loss, at the close of a relationship, when standing at a professional or personal crossroads, or simply when something has shifted and you’re not yet sure what it’s pointing toward.
The assessment is non-invasive, requires no prior knowledge or artistic ability, and takes approximately an hour to complete. The interpretation that follows is where the real conversation begins.
Frequently Asked Questions About the MARI Card Test
What is the MARI Card Test?
The MARI Card Test — formally the Mandala Assessment Research Instrument — is a nonverbal psychological assessment developed by art therapist Joan Kellogg in the 1970s. It uses 39 symbol cards and 45 color cards, chosen intuitively, to create a visual map of a person’s current psychological state, developmental stage, and areas of conscious and unconscious focus.
Do I need any artistic ability or psychological background to benefit from it?
None at all. The assessment is entirely intuitive. Simply choose what you’re drawn to, not what you think is correct. There are no right or wrong answers, and no prior knowledge of psychology or art is required. The process is genuinely accessible and often described as surprisingly natural.
Is the MARI Card Test evidence-based?
It is grounded in decades of clinical research and Jungian psychological theory. Joan Kellogg’s foundational research was published in peer-reviewed journals including the American Journal of Art Therapy, and subsequent studies have examined its applications across clinical populations. It has been used by mental health practitioners, art therapists, music therapists, and coaches for over thirty years.
How does it differ from other assessments like tarot or personality tests?
The MARI Card Test is a psychological instrument rooted in transpersonal and Jungian theory, not divination. It differs from personality assessments like Myers-Briggs in that it accesses nonverbal, unconscious material through image and symbol rather than asking you to self-report through language. It is more accurately understood as a form of non-verbal psychological mapping than either a personality test or a spiritual reading, though its depth often feels like both.
Can it be done virtually?
Yes. Kristy offers the MARI Card Test both in person at Corrales Grief Spa near Albuquerque, NM, and virtually, making it accessible regardless of location.
How do I book a session?
Reach out to Kristy directly to discuss whether the MARI Card Test is the right tool for where you are right now. She’ll talk you through the process and help you determine the best context — standalone session, extended retreat, or as part of an ongoing series — for your specific situation.
