Prompt deck
Animal prompt cards for daily reflection, therapy exercises, workshops, or creative check-ins
Animarium
Your inner field guide
A creative and approachable toolkit for exploring your inner world and fostering holistic self-acceptance, through the power of animal metaphor.
What is Animarium?
An engaging self-reflection framework
Animarium helps people externalize emotional patterns as animal characters, then approach them with curiosity, humor, and acceptance. It gives difficult or abstract inner experiences a more concrete, observable, and approachable shape and naturally prompts a more non-judgemental, compassionate response.
A hybrid, multi-media toolkit
The project currently exists as active prototype versions of a printed prompt deck, a guide booklet, and a web app. The long-term aim is an accessible, memorable, and effective toolkit for in-therapy work, or for self-guided reflection.
Prompt deck
Animal prompt cards for daily reflection, therapy exercises, workshops, or creative check-ins
Guidebook
In-depth exploration of the “what”s, “why“s, and “how”s of the practice, for therapeutic or self-guided use
Web app
Private and customizable animal gallery, online guide, and structured journal for self-exploration
Concept overview
Animarium
Concept overview
Objective
Providing an engaging mental health support toolkit
Animarium harnesses the power of creative metaphor to make self-reflection more approachable, more sustainably engaging, and less stigmatizing.
Drawing on established therapeutic concepts of holistic self-understanding and self-acceptance, it provides an innovative framework for approaching a wide range of emotional challenges.
Important note:
Animarium is a reflective support tool, not a medical device or therapy replacement.
Core insight
Emotional patterns as animals
Mapping emotional patterns to symbolic animal characters that embody their qualities can help to:
- Identify and externalize patterns
- Foster more objective observation
- Disrupt cycles of self-judgement
- Jumpstart a compassionate response
Example
Instead of talking about ‘demons’ or ‘dark sides’, we could talk about an ‘Avoidance Armadillo’, a ‘Drama Donkey’, or a ‘Shame Shrew’. Which framing sounds more approachable?
The concept
An Animarium toolkit
A multimedia, hybrid toolkit through which users can:
- 1Learn and integrate the Animarium visualization technique
- 2Consult, create, and/or personalize a collection of animal characters that evoke troublesome patterns
- 3Journal or reflect through a custom, structured format
- 4Revisit patterns over time
The tools
• Card deck
Animal prompt cards for daily reflection, therapy exercises, workshops, or creative check-ins
• Written guide
In-depth exploration of the practice for self-guided use
• Web app
Private and customizable character gallery, online guide, and structured journal
Use cases
- Supporting material for therapists, educators, coaches, and facilitators
- Individual self-reflection
Target users
Therapy patients and coaching clients
Therapists, educators, and facilitators
Self-guided, reflective individuals
Young people and other visually-oriented learners
Creative and neurodivergent people
Future developments
General
- Professional content consultation and review
- Kids’ version of the card deck and storybook
- Workbook and worksheet materials
- Sharing functionality for patient–therapist exchange
- Content and design review and polish
- New gallery and journal functions: grouping, pinning, re-ordering, and searching
- New user settings and controls: data export and deletion, custom settings, and themes
- Encryption for increased data privacy
- Translation into additional languages
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What early testers have said
“I've found this extremely useful. Creating these animals was a cathartic experience that even made me tear up.”
“Seeing my thought patterns personified, speaking in raw, direct speech, was disarmingly insightful.”
“I found the Guide beautifully written. It feels like reading years of therapy distilled into a few pages.”
“This is very cool! I want to use this with our daughter and send it to my therapist.”
“I think this has a lot of potential with younger people and kids.”
“This would benefit therapists supporting clients who have difficulty externalizing their inner parts, or individuals engaging in parts work, such as IFS, with the support of a therapist.”
Project status
A working prototype, in development
Private app testing
The web app is live for early testers, with feedback being collected and useful input being implemented.
Guide and deck prototypes
A prototype version of a physical prompt card deck and guide booklet is being made available for testing alongside the digital experience.
A clearer public offer
Tester input will guide availability, pricing, formats, and what should become available beyond the prototype.
Possible future plans
Professional consultation
Input from mental health professionals to make the method safer and more useful.
“Kids” version
A child-friendly card deck and storybook version for guided emotional exploration.
Worksheets
Printable workbook and worksheet materials for use alongside therapeutic support.
Sharing
Safe ways for users to share selected reflections with a therapist, so they can bring insights into future sessions.
App tester invitation
Help shape what comes next
Early testers can explore the web app: Read the full guide, create animal profiles, try out the journal format, and leave quick feedback directly from the app menu.
Card example 1
Physical deck
Purchase a prompt deck
A prototype version of the physical card deck is available for purchase and testing. Early interest helps decide what to print, how to price it, and who it should be designed for first. At this stage, the price reflects only the cost of production, delivery, and a small labour fee.
- 20 illustrated animal prompt cards, reflecting a wide range of common patterns
- A compact printed Animarium guide booklet
- An aesthetic, hand-made paper sleeve
Contact me to directly arrange payment and delivery.
About the founder
Created with care by Madeleine Barois.
Madeleine is a Berlin-based, Canadian software engineer, hobby artist, and animal lover. Animarium is designed, written, illustrated, and coded from scratch; a labour of love wrought from a fascination for all things psychological and ecological, and a desire to make emotional self-reflection more accessible and engaging.
I wanted to share with others something that worked so well for me ❤︎
Get in touch
Questions, tester access, or collaboration
Choose a topic below to open a short contact form.
Or e-mail directly at madeleine@my-animarium.com