MARI® Experience
“Everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening. From this point of view awakening is right at your fingertips continually.”
- Pema Chödrön
MARI® (Mandala Assessment Research Instrument) is a creative assessment and self-discovery tool that uses drawn mandalas, archetypal symbols and colour cards to map the human psyche. A mandala is read like a story that reveals your inner truth and reality, not a reality your conscious mind would want it to be, but what it is.
drawn mandala
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archetypal symbol
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colour cards
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MARI®
Mandalas were first introduced to western psychology 100 years ago by Carl Gustav Jung, who used them with his clients as a therapeutic modality. He studied mandalas extensively and associated them with mental and spiritual health. Fifty years later, in the 1970s, Jungian analyst and art therapist Joan Kellog developed MARI® as an art therapy tool. Only in the last decade has mainstream psychology begun to recognize how various aspects of this visual picture of the human psyche can be used to access intuition and inner wisdom and provide guidance from the subconscious.​​
The most comprehensive art therapy
instrument available today
MARI® is based on a multi-levelled perspective that includes both sides of the brain, the unconscious and all four aspects of consciousness – thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting. MARI® has two purposes: first, as an assessment tool it allows you to see deep into your unconscious literally; and second, MARI® is therapeutic and, unlike other tools, provides guidance and solutions to problems. It reveals issues and strengths and facilitates rapid personal insight and direction of personal change.
Learn more about MARI®
How does MARI® Experience work?
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MARI® Experience consists of two online sessions. In the first session (up to 30 minutes), you will learn how MARI® reflects our cyclical life journey through different developmental stages. You will then be instructed to choose eight or nine symbol cards and match them with colour cards, any colour that you feel "goes with" the symbol. You can seek answers to a particular question, explore a specific area, or receive general guidance for personal growth and transformation if you wish so. You will be asked to create a mandala after your first session. There is no "right" or "wrong" way of creating a mandala as long as you have fun. When you submit a picture of your mandala by email, the second session (up to 60 minutes) will be dedicated to MARI® interpretation.
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The MARI® Experience also allows for a follow-up at a designated time in the future, such as after 6 or 12 months. Follow-up MARI® is suited for clients who will actively work on the explored issue and want to check their progress.