Galaxy of Relationships — Illustrative Cards for Exploring Healthy Relationships

Aims of the tool

To equip youth workers, educators and psychosocial professionals with a creative, non-verbal tool for exploring relational qualities with young people — especially those with adverse experiences or in vulnerable contexts.

The tool aims to:

• Enable young people to access and express emotional content that verbal questions cannot reach
• Build awareness of personal relational patterns through projective work with images
• Create safe, structured spaces where vulnerability is possible without exposure
• Provide facilitators with 15 ready-to-use activities across five methodological languages

Description of the tool

The core principle

When you ask a young person “how do you feel?”, the question hits the neocortex first — the brain organises, filters and edits before they speak. An image bypasses that filter, connecting directly with implicit memory and body sensations. The key insight: we do not see what is in the card, we see what is in us.

Psychological foundations

The tool rests on three well-established pillars: the projective mechanism (from Rorschach to the TAT — faced with an ambiguous image, we project our inner world), the Gestalt approach (the card that calls you reflects what your organism needs to attend to now), and Winnicott’s transitional object (the card protects you while it reveals you — you are not talking about yourself, you are talking about an image).

The three layers of work

Activities can be guided at three progressive depths: the Mirror (“what do I see?” — every description is a self-portrait), the Bridge (“what does it connect me with?” — the card links the here-and-now to personal relational history), and the Door (“what wants to emerge?” — unexpected insight and emotion).

The 15 activities

Organised in five methodological categories:

• Body & Movement — building personal choreographies from cards representing valued and rejected aspects of self
• Theatrical Improvisation — living sculptures, narrative improvisation, non-verbal encounters
• Creative Writing — unsent letters, invented relational vocabulary, silent co-written dialogues
• Art Therapy — relational mapping, image-response dialogues, body tracing
• Music-Based — sound composition, playlists, contemplative listening
• Projective Inquiry — a three-position structured reading (what I bring / what I don’t see / what wants to emerge)

Each activity includes duration, group size, step-by-step instructions, facilitator notes and evaluation guidance.

Learning outcomes

Participants develop emotional literacy, awareness of their own relational patterns, capacity to express difficult material safely, and experience of being witnessed without judgment. Facilitators gain a transferable methodology grounded in therapeutic attitude — not therapy.

The golden rule

Nobody interprets another person’s card. Each person is the only legitimate reader of their own. This principle protects the safety of the work and is non-negotiable.