Existential Meaning Card Sort – A Reflective Tool for Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy

A reflective card sort for existential and integrative counselling & psychotherapy. Designed for moments when meaning feels distant, constrained, or difficult to approach.

Existential Meaning Card Sort

A reflective card sort for existential and integrative counselling & psychotherapy - for moments when meaning feels distant, constrained, or difficult to approach.

This resource is designed for therapeutic work where meaning cannot be forced, resolved, or instrumentalised, and where presence matters more than clarity.

Overview

The Existential Meaning Card Sort is a reflective tool grounded in existential and logotherapeutic thought, drawing on traditions associated with Viktor Frankl and existential psychotherapy.

It is designed to support contact with how meaning is currently encountered, strained, or held in a person’s life — without turning meaning into a goal, outcome, or task.

Rather than helping clients find or construct meaning, the cards invite experiential contact with meaning as it is lived:

present or absent, accessible or constrained, clear or ambiguous.

This card sort is not an assessment, technique, or intervention.

It offers orientation, presence, and dialogue in relation to meaning.

Pathways to Existential Meaning

The cards are organised around three parallel pathways through which existential meaning may be encountered. These pathways are not stages, traits, or components of a whole, and they do not need to be balanced or integrated.

Creative Meaning

Contribution · Responsibility · Response

Meaning encountered through what a person gives, does, or takes responsibility for.

Experiential Meaning

Encounter · Presence · Relationship

Meaning encountered through reception and being affected by life — through relationship, beauty, or presence.

Attitudinal Meaning

Stance · Dignity · Response to Limits

Meaning encountered through how a person relates to what cannot be changed.

At different moments, one pathway may feel alive while others remain quiet.

Absence or distance does not indicate failure or lack.

How This Card Sort Is Used

The cards are designed to be used reflectively and dialogically, supporting orientation rather than insight, problem-solving, or action planning.

Practitioners use this card sort:

• When clients feel uncertain about what matters
• In contexts of loss, illness, burnout, or major transition
• When meaning feels constrained, fragile, or difficult to access
• When pressure to decide or move forward feels premature
• To support presence with meaning without resolution

The practitioner holds the existential frame lightly and protects the work from urgency. The client is invited to notice how meaning is currently lived - without interpretation, ranking, or evaluation.

Included Exercises (Digital Guidebook)

The digital guidebook includes three structured reflective exercises. The exercises are not sequential and may be used independently.

Meaning Orientation Snapshot

Noticing which pathways to meaning feel present, distant, or difficult right now.

Pathways, Conditions, and Interference

Exploring where access to meaning feels strained by distinguishing between life conditions and current capacity to relate.

Holding Meaning Without Resolution

Supporting clients in remaining present with meaning without translating it into decisions, plans, or action.

Each exercise includes practitioner guidance, client-facing aims, and clear boundaries to protect existential integrity.

What’s Included

Individual Kit – €35

• 37 professionally designed Existential Meaning cards
• Printed in EU on 350 gsm silk card stock
• Card size: 74 × 105 mm (A7)
• Undyed twill cotton drawstring bag

Included in the kit:

• 37 Existential Meaning cards
• Printed A5 guidebook (shipped with the cards)
• Digital guidebook (PDF) with theoretical background and reflective exercises

Designed for counselling, psychotherapy, supervision, and existentially informed reflective practice.

What This Card Sort Is - and Is Not

This card sort is:

• Phenomenological and experiential
• Grounded in existential and logotherapeutic thought
• Focused on noticing, not resolving
• Designed to protect ambiguity, slowness, and dialogue

This card sort is not:

• An assessment or diagnostic tool
• A values clarification or goal-setting exercise
• A method for identifying “blocked meaning”
• A technique to increase motivation or produce insight

If the work leads to greater presence- with or without clarity- it has served its purpose

Intended Audience

For qualified and trainee counsellors, psychotherapists, coaches, supervisors, educators, and facilitators working within existential, humanistic, or integrative approaches.

This resource is not designed as a self-help tool and is not intended for use without appropriate professional training.

Delivery

• Physical cards and printed booklet are shipped internationally as a kit
• Digital guidebook (PDF) is delivered immediately via Payhip

Orders are shipped via standard post. Delivery times vary by region. Tracking may be provided on selected orders.

Many practitioners choose to combine this deck with the Existential Motivations Card Sort to save on combined shipping