I’m fin. Totally fin.

What a week…

I wanna say doing a weekly comic has been challenging—but I can’t trade it for anything.

I’m working on contributing to an article about AI and women’s health with my friend, Emily. She’s pretty awesome. She writes and does what she does. She doesn’t apologize for her talents: she (just) does.

😅

Gosh, I’m corny.

🌽

Nevertheless, I decided this afternoon to do less is more.

“What if I didn’t do that dialogue?” “What if we just drew eyeballs? What if I made Me Cat big? What if I made the therapist, Therapist Cat, big too?

So I decide to do that very thing. Nothing is stopping me.

I’ve loved making character sheets of New Therapist Cat, so I decided to bring that big-dimensionality to this strip this week.

Here are the Character Sheets in case you were wondering or didn’t read previous episodes…

So there we are.

In other news…

Resource of the Week: Gardens.

My former partner of 16 years finally gets her due for garden on Alabama Street. The article talks about zen, and how building something plant by plant can change lives.

My art & podcast studio are situated here. I’ve spent weeks watering itvwhen she’d go out of town.

It’s a pretty garden.

The picture above doesn’t do it justice.

Check out Love Letters to San Francisco here…

Love Letter: Alabama Street Garden & Eileen Seymour

And, she got a new, fancy shirt from Naomi Nomi…haven’t tagged her in Instagram yet…

I’ve managed to make her laugh. As I do!

My dog was happy today. Maybe it’s because I told her I love her. Maybe it’s because of the chicken liver?

Ciao for now.

THEM CATS in “The 5 A’s of Love”
by T. McCarthy

Narration:
Last we left off, Me Cat lost their train of thought recounting their coaching journey…

Me Cat (yellow):
“When you joyfully interjected, I felt cut off.”

Therapist Cat (blue):
“Sorry ’bout that.”

Therapist Cat:
“Please continue…”

Sign: THE 5 A’s:
Attention • Affection
Acceptance • Allowing
Appreciation

Me Cat:
“OK! So, once upon a time, there was a coach!!!”

Therapist Cat:
“That’s a start!”

Page 2

Me Cat:
“¡Finis!”

Me Cat:
“THE END!”

Therapist Cat:
gasp!

Me Cat:
psych!
“Kidding.”

Therapist Cat:
“Heh!”

Therapist Cat:
“That’s quite alright.”

Me Cat:
ahem
“Once upon a time…”

Therapist Cat:
“PLAY IT AGAIN!”

End:
le fin

—

I’m Still working on Therapist Cat…

Previously, on THEM CATS

Last week:

“Once Upon a Coach”
Me Cat announces the upcoming Jungian coaching graduation → tries to tell the story → Therapist Cat gets wildly enthusiastic → Me Cat loses the thread.
FIN…???

This week:

“The 5 A’s of Love”
We pick up exactly where Me Cat tells Therapist Cat that the “joyful interjection” made them feel cut off.

Therapist Cat apologizes and makes room for Me Cat to continue.

I went to Muir Woods and all I got were pine needles…

Then we stopped for a burger

> self.session_id = session_id
> self._canonical_state: Dict[str, Any] = {
> "subjects”: "Two cartoon cats with long, fat tails,
> a round black nose, and no clothing",
> "cat_color_1”: "yellow",
> "hat": {"present": False, "color": None},
> "environment": None,
> "additions": []
> }

I’ve been looking at too many lines of code…

Therapist Cat

Me Cat (yellow): “I’m about to graduate from my Jungian coaching program!”

Jungian Coach (blue): “Exciting! Tell me the story.”

Me Cat: “Hmm, once upon a time…”

Jungian Coach: “Riveting! Go on!”

Me Cat: “Where was I?”

FIN…???

Resource of the Week: Perspective taking and journaling

Transcript
Comic: THEM CATS in “Keep on Keepin’ On”

Panel 1–

Therapist Cat (orange): Hi! Do you remember us?

Me Cat (yellow): Oh my gosh! Yes! Where have you been?! ????

Panel 2–

Therapist Cat: I’ve been in your psyche.

Me Cat: Heh, heh. He hasn’t changed.

Panel 3–

Therapist Cat: That’s a mug for you.

Me Cat: He just keeps on keepin’ on!

—

Darius the Mug: Ugh—spare me your sympathy. I need some tea & quiet.

Darius’ ceramic intervention

Previously, on THEM CATS...

We meet Darius, Therapist Cat’s enduring—heh—mug…

Previously:

📚 Resource of the Week

Active Imagination + Gladys Knight & the Pips

This week’s comic is about active imagination: giving an image, object, character, dream figure—or even an ordinary thing in your life—enough imaginative space to answer back.

In Jungian work, instead of immediately deciding what something means, we can enter into a conversation with it.

Let’s use questions Bob Hoss would use, shall we?

• What are you?

• Why are you here?

• What do you want me to know?

• What do you need from me?

• And what happens if I actually listen?

Bob Hoss calls this “letting the image speak.”
Rather than deciding what an image means, we temporarily become it and answer from its point of view of the thing or person in our waking and dreaming lives. Then we notice where those answers touch our parts.That is part of the joke behind THEM CATS. Sometimes even Therapist Cat’s tea mug (Darius I to V) gets a voice.

🎧 Listen: Gladys Knight & the Pips — “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination”

[LINK: keep on keepin' on...]

The song comes from their 1973 album Imagination, and it feels particularly right for this week’s strip: imagination isn’t necessarily an escape from reality.

I love the album cover: They’re all holding up golden frames, my only guess is that works of art go in there

Sometimes imagination gives us another way of staying in relationship with an experience long enough to discover what it carries.

Active imagination, a method developed by Carl Jung and taught by Jungian analyst Ken James on the Jung Platform, can help us preserve contact with an image, memory, object, or inner figure before the conscious mind explains it away.

And occasionally, apparently, the object says:

“YOU FOOL!”

The PostScript

About the Series

THEM CATS transforms 38—going on 39—years of Tess’ therapy into visual healing.

Created by Tess McCarthy, who signs the comic as T. McCarthy, each strip features imaginary conversations between two nameless, non-binary cats: Me Cat, representing the creator, and Therapist Cat, representing the therapist.

The evolving cast now also includes New Therapist Cat, a blue, goateed cat—and the occasional object that has something to say.

What began with a strange dream in April 2020 became a way of processing trauma, growth, absurdity, insight, and the seemingly endless cycle of healing through simple, accessible art.

About Tess

Tess McCarthy is an information architect and Jungian coach whose work centers on meaning, structure, identity, and transition.

In her consulting practice, she helps organizations sort out messy information systems and make their expertise more structurally legible to people, search engines, and AI.

In her private practice, Red Thread Intuitive, she works with people navigating life transitions using Jungian coaching alongside the archetypal languages of astrology and tarot.

She has practiced coaching for two years, astrology professionally for six, and tarot for more than two decades.

Red Thread Intuitive: redthreadintuitive.com

About Visual Liquid

Visual Liquid is Tess McCarthy’s home for visual essays, observational drawing, comics, cultural archaeology, and the strange connective tissue between images, information, psychology, and everyday life.

THEM CATS: A COMIC ABOUT MY THERAPY. © 2026 by T. McCarthy (aka Tess McCarthy), Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide.

THEM CATS in “Allowing”

Panel 1

Me Cat (Yellow Cat):
“Allow me to grieve.”

New Therapist Cat (Blue Cat):
“Granted!”

Panel 2

Me Cat:
“That’s all??”

Therapist Cat:
“Isn’t it enough to allow you to?”

Panel 3

Me Cat:
“Okay, back to my grief…”

Therapist Cat:
“Carry on…”

—FIN

Allow me to grieve…

This is my late therapist who died suddenly in a car crash. I had her for 9 years—it’s now around the same time I’ve had my therapist, Stevie.

Paolo is my new therapist.

Stevie is the orange Therapist Cat.

Paolo is the blue New Therapist Cat.

I haven’t thought of Ghost Therapist Cat. It makes me incredibly sad to think of the loss. My mom passed away July 2014. Marcia passed 2018. My older half sister who was like a mother to me passed in 2016.

I wrote poetry to handle the loss.

1. “Once Had, Then Lost”

   

   2. “There You Are/Newborn Ancestors”

   

ROTW (Resource of the Week): David Richo
In memory of Marcia Iris Baum

Marcia Iris Baum was my therapist, mentor, and one of the people who I still miss because she changed the course of my life.

She introduced me to the work of David Richo* at a time when I was learning that relationships are tough.

Two things from his work have stayed with me for years: the Five A’s and his book How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving.

They’re deceptively simple, but I’ve found myself returning to them again and again whenever life, friendship, or love feels difficult.

*Pronounced “David RITCH-oh”

I mean, this is relational wisdom, right!?

Am I right?

She was proud of me: for the longest time, I was basically a Lesbian housewife. But she saw my trajectory. I saw her from 2009 to 2018.

When her associate texted me out of the blue, I fell to my knees:

“Hi, Tess. This is Cheryl, I’m Marcia’s associate of 30 plus years. Marcia won’t be in Friday, she was in an accident: I don’t have further information, but will keep you posted.”

I thought she pull through with the updates. But around 2:03 pm on August 18th, 2018, I got the call that she passed away.

They took her off life support.

I learned details of the accident. It was angering: the other car hit her head on and he crossed a double yellow line trying to go around a slow truck. He didn’t see her. Him and his girlfriend survived. Marcus didn’t.

I was upset about it for months.

People close to me allowed me to grieve. I recall telling my workmates at the airport my therapist had passed. My Scottish friend said, “What woood Marsha dew? She’d tell ya, ‘Go home, Tess.’” And so I did.

My friends were sad. Why? Because I’d imitate her Brooklyn accent! She was so funny. One time I had breast cancer, and I was upset I had to wait 2 weeks. So I tell her.

Marcia went, “Nah! Ya gonna get a quicker appointment. Ya gonna cawl now!”

So I did. It saved me anxiety. My late therapist taught me to take action.

I have internalized her to the point where I do ask myself, “What would Marcia do?” Well, she’d do the proactive thing, that’s for sure. She was a social worker.

The Five A’s of Mindful Loving

• Attention — being fully present.

• Acceptance — allowing people and ourselves to be who we are, not who we wish they were.

• Appreciation — recognizing what is good before focusing on what is missing.

• Affection — expressing warmth, care, and genuine connection.

• Allowing — making room for life’s unfolding without trying to control every outcome.

Richo explores these ideas throughout How to Be an Adult in Relationships, but they’ve become more than concepts for me. They’ve become questions I return to:

• Am I paying attention?

• Can I practice acceptance without giving up my boundaries?

• Have I expressed appreciation?

• Am I allowing love to be expressed?

• Am I allowing life to unfold instead of trying to force it?

I'm 55 now, and I realize these Five A's aren't something you master once. They're practices you return to throughout your life. Every relationship becomes another opportunity to begin again.

Healthy relationships are built not by finding the perfect partner, but by developing the emotional maturity to love well.

He describes these as ongoing practices rather than goals to achieve once because we are constantly growing, man.

Love vs. Attachment

Richo distinguishes between loving someone and being attached to getting our needs met in a particular way.

One question running through the book is:

Am I loving this person as they are, or am I trying to make them become who I need them to be?

The Shadow in Relationships

Influenced by Jungian psychology, Richo sees conflict as an opportunity to become conscious of our own patterns. Feelings such as jealousy, anger, fear, or abandonment aren’t failures—they’re invitations to explore what is being activated within us.

This dovetails nicely with my own observation that jealousy often arises when someone feels under-resourced or when a relationship has become unhealthy. Rather than condemning the feeling, the task is to understand what it’s protecting and decide how to respond.

Acceptance Is Not the Same as Endurance

One nuance people sometimes miss is that acceptance doesn’t mean tolerating harmful behavior.

Acceptance—like Radical Acceptance—means seeing reality clearly:

• accepting who someone is,

• accepting what they’re actually showing you,

• and then making choices that honor your own well-being.

That distinction is important because it keeps “allowing” from becoming passivity.

Relationships as a Spiritual Practice

Richo views relationships as a place where we practice:

• mindfulness,

• compassion,

• healthy boundaries,

• forgiveness,

• and self-awareness.

The goal isn’t a conflict-free relationship. It’s becoming more conscious in the midst of real relationships.

But let’s get messy: it wasn’t easy to read this book. It took me reading Human Becoming: Practical Steps to Self-Respect and Compassionate Relationships, first because he visits the 5 A’s here.

You can listen to “Affirmations of Letting Go of Fear” on his website too.

Tell me what you think of Richo in the comments please!
|>

Leave a comment

About Visual Liquid

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist-forward lifestyle, poetry, art, and photography publication dedicated to illuminating the work of the world’s most creative outliers.

We celebrate rebels, fierce femmes, renaissance people, BIPOC creators, Queer and LGBTQIA+ voices, disabled artists, older creatives, and people making meaningful work beyond the center of the mainstream.

THEM CATS is live

THEMCATS.COM

THEM CATS—the therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats navigating therapy, emotional life, and mental wellness—now has a home of its own.

Visit: themcats.com

Disclaimer

THEM CATS is a work of fiction featuring nameless, non-binary cats navigating therapy and mental wellness themes.

Although the comic is inspired by therapeutic concepts and personal experiences, its characters, situations, therapists, and dramatic revelations are fictionalized for entertainment, creative reflection, and emotional recognition.

THEM CATS is not a substitute for professional mental health care, therapy, medical guidance, or veterinary advice. The cats are fine.

For personal mental health concerns, please consult a licensed clinician—preferably one who accepts your insurance and will not judge you for relating deeply to cartoon cats.

THEM CATS: A COMIC ABOUT MY THERAPY. © 2026, T. McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide.

Panel 1

Me Cat:
“I feel like I’m falling apart.”

New Therapist Cat:
“You’re entitled. Go ahead.”

Panel 2

Me Cat:
“Really?”

New Therapist Cat:
“Yes! Go ahead.”

Panel 3

Me Cat:
“See how fractured?”

New Therapist Cat:
“Here’s gold glue. Let’s make kintsugi.”

• FIN

Resource of the Week: Kintsugi

The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. Rather than hiding fractures, kintsugi makes them part of the object’s history and beauty. It’s a fitting metaphor for psychological growth: healing doesn’t erase what happened; it integrates it into a stronger whole.

About Visual Liquid

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist-forward lifestyle, poetry, art, and photography publication dedicated to illuminating the work of the world’s most creative outliers.

We celebrate rebels, fierce femmes, renaissance people, BIPOC creators, Queer and LGBTQIA+ voices, disabled artists, older creatives, and people making meaningful work beyond the center of the mainstream.

THEM CATS is live

THEMCATS.COM

THEM CATS—the therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats navigating therapy, emotional life, and mental wellness—now has a home of its own.

Visit: themcats.com

Disclaimer

THEM CATS is a work of fiction featuring nameless, non-binary cats navigating therapy and mental wellness themes.

Although the comic is inspired by therapeutic concepts and personal experiences, its characters, situations, therapists, and dramatic revelations are fictionalized for entertainment, creative reflection, and emotional recognition.

THEM CATS is not a substitute for professional mental health care, therapy, medical guidance, or veterinary advice. The cats are fine.

For personal mental health concerns, please consult a licensed clinician—preferably one who accepts your insurance and will not judge you for relating deeply to cartoon cats.

THEM CATS: A COMIC ABOUT MY THERAPY. © 2026, T. McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide.

Transcription

Title: THEM CATS in “Positive Self Talk” by T. McCarthy

Panel 1

Me Cat (Yellow Cat):

“I’m tired of putting myself down.”

New Therapist Cat (Blue/Gray Cat):

“Splendid! It’s time for positive self-talk!”

Panel 2

Me Cat:

“How do I start?”

New Therapist Cat:

“Well, we start now! Let’s try a positive affirmation.”

Panel 3

Me Cat:

“I am less nervous today.”

New Therapist Cat:

“Oooh! That’s a start!”

Resource of the Week

Darius, Therapist Cat’s long-suffering mug, presents this week’s Resource of the Week

• LINK: “Let Go of Limiting Beliefs” by Darius Bashar on Insight Timer

This 16-minute guided meditation focuses on noticing and releasing limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, and the internal stories that keep repeating themselves. And, I think recognizing your limiting beliefs first helps you make room for positive self-talk. You know, you have to be aware of one behavior to replace it with another.

The link is from Insight Timer Premium, so in case you don’t want to sign up, a public transcript is available with the meditation on Insight Timer. I’ve linked to the original below and included my own snippet.

Previously on THEM CATS

Do you recall the episode where Darius the 5th starts talking in therapy? He’s the little mug old Therapist Cat had nestled between their arms.

• Read: “Self-Limiting Beliefs” here.

Welcome to the cast, Darius. I have a feeling readers are going to look forward to those perfectly timed lines under New Therapist’s arms as the new mug, same character “Darius the 6th.” He may be blue or pink, or another shape of green, but I’m opting for a pink mug. What will always remain: the heavy “bags under the eyes.” It makes him look like he’s seen decades of therapy sessions (like me) and is perpetually one cup away from retirement.

Darius:
"It's fin. We've been over this."

Transcription for “Let Go of Self-Limiting Beliefs”
”…Now all of us have been exposed to limiting beliefs.
I don’t care who you are,
All of us.
That’s a key component of the human experience.
I’m not good enough.
I’m not smart enough.
I’m not pretty enough.
I’m not old enough.
I’m too old.
I’m not lovable.
I’m not likable.
People don’t respect me.
I can’t make a relationship work.
I can’t make money.
There’s an infinite amount of limiting beliefs that we have been exposed to,
That have been thrown into our garden.
And if we’re not careful,
Those limiting beliefs will grow and continue to grow.”

The Post Script

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist forward lifestyle & poetry/art/photography publication. Its mission is to elucidate the work of the world’s most creative outliers. We celebrate rebels, renaissance women/femmes, BIPOC, Queer/LGBTQIA, disabled & aged creative forces

LIVE! CATS, CATS, CATS on THEMCATS.COM - The therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions has remains on themcats.com.

Disclaimer:

THEM CATS is a work of fiction featuring nameless, non-binary cats navigating therapy and mental wellness themes. While inspired by real therapeutic concepts and personal experiences, all characters, situations, therapists, and dramatic revelations are fictionalized for entertainment and reflection purposes. This comic is not a substitute for professional mental health care, actual therapy, or veterinary advice (the cats are fine). If you have personal mental health concerns, please consult a licensed clinician, and preferably one who accepts your insurance.

Work With Me

• Are you ready to uncover the stories that keep you stuck?

  
  I’m currently offering a five-session Jungian coaching arc focused on recurring patterns, self-limiting beliefs, symbols, creativity, and practical next steps.

• I’m completing my Jungian Coaching certification* through the Jung Platform in September. I am not a licensed therapist, and coaching is not a substitute for mental-health treatment.

  
  DM me to ask about the practicum package. Or e-mail me below:
  

  Email Me About Jungian Coaching!

*I’ve been doing this work intensively with clients for the past year, from this side of the couch. I’m completing Jungian Coaching certification through the Jung Platform in September. I’m not a licensed therapist, but I do a lot of cool work with clients.

© 2026, by Tess McCarthy, Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS: ABOUT MY THERAPY.

THEM CATS in “Bypassing”

Me Cat (Yellow):
I didn’t get the job.

New Therapist Cat (Blue):
The Universe has something better for you!

Me Cat:
Wait... don’t you think that’s bypassing?

New Therapist Cat:
...Okay.

New Therapist Cat:
Let’s mourn the loss first.

Me Cat:
Okay.

New Therapist Cat:
I need five minutes of silence.

Me Cat:
Sure.

fin.

Why is it easy to bypass your feelings?

• I know why I bypass: I don’t want to feel the intensity

With RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) it hurts to feel. The intensity is heavy. A reflex is bypassing.

So for people like me, this kind of news can feel much bigger than a typical disappointment. It can sound like your brain is saying:

• “See? I’m not good enough.”

But that’s a feeling—not a fact. Right?

Here’s what is factual:

• I was recruited.

• I passed a phone screen.

• I made it to the interview.

• I was competitive enough to be considered.

How Do We Deal?

We can accept disappointment with grace—the kind that begins with self compassion. For me, holding your chin up isn’t about pretending everything is fine or instilling pride. Closer to pride, though, is recognizing your own dignity while you continue. But in the interim there’s this…messiness. And that’s where Radical Acceptance comes in.

Resource of the Week

Radical Acceptance — Marsha Linehan / DBT

A compact resource box could say:

Radical acceptance means fully acknowledging reality as it is—even when you dislike it, did not choose it, and wish it were different.

Acceptance does not mean approval, passivity, forgiveness, or giving up. It means ending the additional suffering created by repeatedly insisting that reality should not be reality.

DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) pairs acceptance with mindfulness, which leads to change. For Radical Acceptance, we first recognize what is true, then decide what action—even no action is great— is possible.

Why you may need these journal prompts

What happened?
What do I wish had happened?
What feeling appears when I stop arguing with the difference?
What needs care before I decide what comes next?

I have been casually looking for work to pay bills. A few months ago, I would have tried to go right into reasoning it out. might have gone straight into:

• trying to explain why you should have gotten the job,

• analyzing the hiring process, and thinking, “That recruiter isn’t into me…”

• convincing yourself it was a blessing in disguise

• or trying to immediately replace the loss with another plan.

Instead, I wrote after journaling answers to those questions above:

“I am going to sit with the grief.”

I talk about sitting with sadness in another THEM CATS comic here, in “New Moment,” where the new therapist cat is asking me to change my thinking in a snap, but I want to accept the sadness.

You know? I really set a timer and allowed myself to cry over this loss, and all the feelings.

What wisdom emerged?

“I wanted the promise of that job—sure money.”

That’s incredibly specific, nope. It was “I wanted the job.”

I identified what I was grieving:

• the stability,

• the paycheck,

• the relief,

• the promise that the next chapter might be easier.

I could see it all in front of me.

Then wrote:

“When I’m ready, I can decide what this all means.”

We can’t get anymore radical than this. When we can see, feel and experience, then the balance between acceptance and moving forward go hand in hand. I’m learning that I didn’t deny my feelings, and…I didn’t let this experience dictate the final story. I will just have to keep moving on.

Coaching, anyone?
Jungian Life Transition Coaching

A five-session coaching arc using dreamwork, archetypes, symbols, tarot, astrology, and creative reflection.

Substack reader rate: $40 per session …that’s $200 for the whole package. You’re worth it. Limited pre-certification spots available.

DM me and mention “SUBSTACK” to learn more.

I’ve been offering Jungian-style life transition coaching for about two years, integrating dreamwork, archetypes, tarot, astrology, symbols, and creative reflection.

As part of my pre-certification practice, I’m opening a small number of five-session Jungian coaching arcs at a reduced rate of $40 per session, rather than my usual $180 rate.

The five-session arc

Session 1: Intake, goals, and what you want to explore
Session 2: Family of origin, recurring patterns, life themes, and what is asking for your attention
Session 3: Dreamwork, symbols, archetypes, tarot or astrology reflection, or meeting inner parts
Session 4: Integration exercises and supportive practices
Session 5: Reflection, transformation, learning, and next steps

This may be a good fit for you if you’re interested in:

Dreamwork, tarot, astrology, archetypes, life transitions, creative blocks, relationship patterns, personal meaning-making, James Hollis, or Jungian depth psychology.

This is coaching, not therapy. It is best suited for people who feel stable enough to reflect on their inner lives and try gentle practices between sessions.

I have a limited number of pre-certification spots available. DM me and mention “SUBSTACK” for details.

The Post Script

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist forward lifestyle & poetry/art/photography publication. Its mission is to elucidate the work of the world’s most creative outliers. We celebrate rebels, renaissance women/femmes, BIPOC, Queer/LGBTQIA, disabled & aged creative forces

THEM CATS & THEMCATS.COM - The therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions. Born from a strange dream in April 2020, these pointy-eared, fat-nosed cats transformed into the visual language millions didn’t know they needed to process their deepest pain and healing. Until now.

© 2026 T. McCarthy aka Tess McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS: ABOUT MY THERAPY.

Transcript

Me Cat: I wish I wouldn’t second guess myself.
New Therapist Cat: Ah! What would your intuition say?
Me Cat: My intuition would say, “Trust your gut!”
New Therapist Cat: See? There’s your answer!
Me Cat: Yeah, but my gut is tired of working overtime.
New Therapist Cat: Your gut needs back pay!

-fin.

Resource of the Week: Interoception

Interoception is the body’s inner sensing system: heartbeat, breath, gut sensations, hunger, fatigue, pain, temperature, muscle tension, and those hard-to-name “something feels off” signals that arrive before language does.

For autistic people, trauma survivors, and highly sensitive nervous systems, interoception can be complicated. Sometimes the body signal is loud but hard to interpret. Sometimes the signal is faint until it becomes urgent. Sometimes anxiety, memory, pattern recognition, and intuition all arrive wearing the same coat.

So the practice is not “always trust your gut immediately.”

How to listen to your intuition:

• Pause.
  Listen (I mean, do a body scan)

• Then ask: what kind of signal this is?

• Then decide whether you need action, rest, more context, or support.

Intuition says, “Go.” It can also say, “No.”
Sometimes it says, “Email your therapist, take a nap, and draw the comic.”

And sometimes the gut simply says:

“I am tired of working overtime.”

Post Script

THEM CATS & THEMCATS.COM

It’s the therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions. Born from a strange dream in April 2020, the pointy-eared, fat-nosed “Me Cat,” and its shorthaired Therapist Cat meet every week. THEM CATS transforms into the visual language millions didn’t know they needed to process their deepest pain and healing. Until now.

The cats are out every Thursday at 6 a.m. PST in the THEM CATS section on Visual Liquid Megazine barring a Void Course of the Moon.

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist forward lifestyle & poetry/art/photography publication. Its mission is to elucidate the work of the world’s most creative outliers. We celebrate rebels, renaissance women/femmes, BIPOC, Queer/LGBTQIA, disabled & aged creative forces
The cats are out every Thursday at 6 a.m. PST in the THEM CATS section on Visual Liquid Megazine barring a Void Course of the Moon.

© 2026 T. McCarthy aka Tess McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS: A COMIC ABOUT MY THERAPY.

“New Moment!” “Next” and “Turn it Over” is New Therapist Cat’s attempt to flip the script, and that is to turn the feeling over and look for a new moment, a new angle, a new relationship to the trigger. But Me Cat refuses to bypass the sadness. The revelation is that accepting the feeling is also a new moment.

Transcript

Title:
New Moment

Panel 1
Me Cat: Golly. I feel so incredibly sad!!!
New Therapist Cat: Ah, new moment!

Panel 2
New Therapist Cat: See if you can turn it over.
Me Cat: I still feel incredibly sad. Ugh!

Panel 3
New Therapist Cat: Let’s try next.
Me Cat: Uhh… how about I accept my sadness?

Panel 4
New Therapist Cat: Always an option…
Me Cat: Let ’er rip!

Final tag:
fin.

This Week? I Learned to Name Trigger

THEM CATS is a comic about my internal life externalized. Through recurring cat characters, Me Cat (representing me/the Id & Ego) and Therapist Cat/New Therapist Cat (representing my more adult self/Ego/Superego), I explore therapy, neurodivergence, emotional overwhelm, symbolic life, and the strange humor of having many inner voices at once. This week, I explore the power of now, accepting one’s emotions, and dream work.

My cats function like dream figures: they interrupt, reveal, comfort, provoke, and translate into image and dialogue. You can name what bothers you, and it depersonalizes what others do to trigger you. You name the trigger, not the personality.

Resource of the Week: Machiel Clerk’s Dream Work Exercise and the Jung Platform

I hate that the spacing in Substack is uncomfortably “spacey” but I’ll get better. I always do.

Everything You Wanted to Learn About Dreams & Their Meanings
On YouTube:

“How can I love myself more?” “What is my strange feeling in my foot?” “What’s the cure to my athlete’s foot?”

I am going to spend July dreaming.

Tapping Into Your Dreams

This week’s resource is inspired by dream worker and Jung Platform founder Machiel Klerk, whose approach to dreams has been especially helpful to me as I continue my Jungian Coaching certification.

With Machiel’s generous permission, I wanted to point readers toward his work on dream guidance and dream incubation…especially the idea that dreams are not simply puzzles to decode, but relationships to cultivate.

That’s important: A dream is an encounter although we want to decode it, we need to pay attention to what it’s telling us over what it means.

Rather than asking, “What does this mean?” too quickly, Machiel’s approach invites a slower, more relational question:

• What is the dream showing me?

• What image wants my attention?

• What could I try next?

One practice we explored is dream incubation: choosing a question before sleep and inviting the dream to respond. The question should matter to yourself and how you relate to others. It should be specific enough that the psyche has somewhere to go.

For example, instead of asking:

Why am I blocked?

you might ask:

Dream, show me one small action I could take tomorrow.

Instead of:

What should I do with my life?

you might ask:

Dream, show me the next thread I could follow.

That word could is important. “Should” can feel like there is one perfect answer. “Could” opens a door.

The ritual can be simple: write the question by hand, place your notebook near the bed, put a meaningful object beside it, and speak directly to the psyche:

Psyche, I could really use some help here. I am listening.

Then sleep with the question.

The answer may come as a full dream, but it may also come as a fragment, a figure, a mood, a phrase, a body sensation, or a synchronicity the next day. Dreamwork does not end when we wake up. The dream can keep speaking through images, encounters, repetitions, and the strange little echoes of daily life.

This is where THEM CATS comes in.

THEM CATS is my comic about inner life made visible. The cats are recurring figures — parts of self, therapy voices, dream voices, anxious voices, wise voices, and absurd little messengers from the psyche. Sometimes they say what I cannot say directly. Sometimes they reveal what I am avoiding. Sometimes they simply appear, like dream figures, asking to be noticed.

In that sense, the comic has always been dreamwork-adjacent. It gives the inner world a cast of characters. It lets the psyche speak in images, jokes, fragments, and strange encounters.

Machiel’s dream guidance and even the work we did on every day symbols this week in waking life helped me understand this more about how we can start a dialogue with daily things that appear in our lives.

This is something I began with THEM CATS: I needed to talk to parts of me I couldn’t face. And, then more of me arrived. Sometimes the dream does not arrive as a neat answer.

Sometimes it arrives as a character. Sometimes it arrives as a cat.

The invitation is not to explain it away too quickly. So stay with it long enough to hear what it carries.

Try this week’s practice. It is super simple:

1. Before bed, ask one question that’s specific enough—not vague. Ask it for advice and tips.

2. Write it down.

3. Let the dream answer in whatever form it chooses.

4. In the morning, record first and interpret later.

Ask:

• What happened?

• What image has energy?

• What feeling remains?

• Where does this show up in waking life?

• If it’s a problem solving dream: What is one small action I could take today?

Get in contact with your dream self to tap into what’s possible.

Recommended resource:
Machiel Klerk’s work on dream guidance and dream incubation, including his book Dream Guidance (out of stock on Hay House) and his teaching through Jung Platform.

The Jung Platform

The Jung Platform was created because of a dream Klerk had.

About
The Jung Platform. The /talks page offers free, on-demand classes you can take. And over time, that’s how I got hooked on Jung!

Link:
- https://www.jungplatform.com
- https://jungplatform.com/talks

“Dream Guidance” by Machiel Klerk on WorldCat

Blurb:
Everyone dreams-both literally and metaphorically-but most people don't know that their dreams can be used for personal development. Therapist, dream expert, and founder of the Jung Society of Utah and the Jung Platform Machiel Klerk shares how, through dream incubation, you can manifest the life of your dreams just by cultivating an intimate relationship with your own dreams and taking the guidance you receive from your subconscious.

WorldCat.org Link:
- https://search.worldcat.org/title/1322197420

Let Me Tell You About This Dream I Had About Cher

If I could turn back time, I would. I would also write things down faster. But, after following Mr. Klerk’s prescription, luck would have it that I only dreamed about a copper wire teddy bear with no eyes.

”Not good enough,” I said half asleep going to the bathroom. With my eye mask donned over my head, I took a sip of water, and slipped it back over my eyes to take another stab at dreaming: and dream I did.

Cher appeared on my chair. Cher on Chair? Yes. She talked to me, and said, “Look, you don’t need to wait a whole night to get answers. You have a direct channel. Ask me anything before waking hours.”

What Cher Suggests: Make a Flyer

Naturally the next early morning I ask, “How can I grow my practice?” So my my dream guide had really practical advice Tuesday night: “Make a goddamn flyer.” So I did. I made this cute one because I need one more pre-certification client locally and even though my rate for normal clients is $180, I decided I need to get this requirement done as soon as possible—under a month.

I’ve been doing Jungian-style life transition coaching for about two years, integrating dreamwork, archetypes, tarot, astrology, symbols, and creative reflection. As part of my pre-certification practice, I’m opening a small number of 5-session Jungian coaching arcs at a reduced rate for those off of Substack: $90/session instead of my regular $180/session.

But if you’re on Substack, mention “SUBSTACK” and this flyer up here, and you’ll get the $40 rate!

The arc includes:

Session 1: Intake, goals, and what you want to work with
Session 2: Unpacking the pattern: family of origin, life themes, recurring stories, and what’s asking for your attention
Session 3: Dreamwork, symbols, archetypes, tarot/astrology reflection, or meeting inner parts
Session 4: Integration exercises and practices
Session 5: Reflection, transformation, learning, and next steps

This may be a good fit if you’re interested in dreamwork, tarot, astrology, archetypes, life transitions, creative blocks, relationship patterns, personal meaning-making, or the work of James Hollis, and Jungian depth psychology.

This is coaching, not therapy, and it’s best suited for people who are stable enough to reflect on their inner life and try gentle practices between sessions.

I have a limited number of pre-certification client spots available. DM me if you’re interested, and I’ll send details.

The Post Script

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist forward lifestyle & poetry/art/photography publication. Its mission is to elucidate the work of the world’s most creative outliers. We celebrate rebels, renaissance women/femmes, BIPOC, Queer/LGBTQIA, disabled & aged creative forces

THEM CATS & THEMCATS.COM - The therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions. Born from a strange dream in April 2020, these pointy-eared, fat-nosed cats transformed into the visual language millions didn’t know they needed to process their deepest pain and healing. Until now.

© 2026 T. McCarthy aka Tess McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS: ABOUT MY THERAPY.

1. Klerk M. Dream Guidance : Connecting to the Soul through Dream Incubation. First edition. Hay House, Inc.; 2022.

Transcript

THEM CATS in “CUP O’ NOODLES” by T. McCARTHY

[Panel 1]

Me Cat (Yellow Cat): I decided to make the best out of a dire situation!

New Therapist Cat (Blue Cat): Oh?

Me Cat: I elevated my Cup o’ Noodles experience!

New Therapist Cat: I haven’t had it since my college days!

New Therapist Cat: What did you do?

[Panel 2]

Me Cat: Well... I took the ramen out of its styrofoam cup!

New Therapist Cat: Fancy-schmancy!

[Panel 3]

Me Cat: Then, I put bok choy and an egg on it!

New Therapist Cat: You know? I love the styrofoam taste too!

~fín

📚 Resource of the Week: Cup o’ Noodles, anyone?

Here are some choice links I find very helpful learning about the mystery of this mystery food…

1. Japan Travel tells you all about the history…https://www.japan.travel/en/my/travelers-blog/the-story-nissin-cup-noodles/

2. There’s this manga story that’s very gripping—easy to read. Find it on WorldCat—not Amazon here…

   https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39QQPVp7KHD7Qc3kmvQQMr4Fg

   

3. Blog about it on Chris’s Invincible Blog, “The Unbearable Radness of Project X.”

   http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/07/unbearable-radness-of-project-x.html?m=1

   

And now for THEM CATS—A resource in and of itself!

It’s free, it’s non-binary, and it’s here every Thursday. Check out my un-updated index!

• [Link to THEM CATS]

Share it with someone who needs to hear "Let it all out" today.

NEW! Librarian/Librarian Adjacent Group on LinkedIn: Librarians Who Vibe Code

For years, those who knew code controlled the technology. In the 80s, you needed a Woz to create something. And you needed a physical team in Silicon Valley or Seattle to make that dream come true. In the 90s during the dot.com boom, you bedded HTML/CSS/Java to build a web presence.

But then blogs normalized things. sorta. Suddenly, you didn't need a degree in computer science or a seat in Silicon Valley to put words on the internet. You just needed a voice and a connection.

Yet, the gatekeeping didn't disappear. It just moved. The 'tech bro' language shifted, but the assumption that code is reserved for a specific kind of person stayed the same.

Mobile apps in the Aughts still required someone knowing C# and don’t get us started on crypto.

Librarians Who Vibe Code (LWVC) is the antidote to that. It’s a space where librarians, archivists, and their friends reclaim the tools of the web—not as an exclusive club, but as a shared language. We don’t just use the stacks; we build the shelves. Or the GitHub repository!

Ways to Support THEM CATS

• If you can't afford a paid subscription, I get it—share this post with one friend who might. Word of mouth is how this grows

• Contribute to the Megazine! See my submission call below this line. Let’s get seen!

Catch MorningPoems at

https://substack.com/@tessmccarthy

Call for Submissions: Visual Liquid Magazine

THEM CATS is growing into a home for raw, honest work. I'm looking for:

· Poetry — not too long, sensory, evocative, real.

· Art— ink, watercolor, digital, collage, comic panels.

· Photography — street, still life, moody, intimate.

What I'm looking for:

· Work that feels alive.

· Written that doesn't pretend to be perfect, and not originally concocted by AI. I don’t mind AI edits, but don’t let it write for you. No AI generated art, but okay if it’s filtered or refined with AI.

• In all: it must have 100% human-origination. Some AI participation is okay.

How to submit:

· DM me here with the Subject: "Visual Liquid Submission – [Section] [Your Name]"

· Attach your work (PNG, or PDF for art/photo; plain text for poetry).

· Include a short bio (2–3 sentences) and where you're based. Add your Substack handle so I can make you co-editor.

What you get:

· Your work published in Visual Liquid Magazine with full credit.

· A featured spot in the weekly newsletter.

No fee to submit. No fee to read. Just honest work, shared with people who care. And you get to cross post.

Once I get major finding, you get an honorarium.

NEW! Exclusive Content for Subscribers

THEM CATS is a reader-supported publication. The comic is free for everyone—because I want you to feel the vibe.

To receive the full Tuesday-night walk, the raw archive, and the weekly keeping my head above water-making a way when I can, and temporary layoffs, good times, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Did you get I riffed on the TV comedy Good Times? 😅

Subscribe

It Happened the Other Night

I was coming back to Oakland to care for two beloved cats—not mine. I had a $20 left over from reading card at the vintage shop on Piedmont. I’m hungry. I can’t qualify for food stamps.

There’s Cup O’ Noodles. Since I’m in a bodega, it could run me $3. “How much?” I ask. The cashier smiles, “Buck fifty.”

“Coolio. I’ll get this mango chili fruit roll.”

I get the candy for my inner child. I buy the freeze dried ramen for my hungry adult, and I’m happy.

I walk along Grand. The lake is gorgeous. I’ve been fixing my website all evening. I feel like I did things.

I am happy.

I put a dollar—that I got back in change—in a cup. It’s next to a man sleeping on the sidewalk as I come out. I keep the quarter to add to my laundry kitty.

I end up not eating it since it’s late. I drink a glass of milk, take Benadryl to sleep. And in the morning the ramen awaits.

The $4 Coffee and the $6 Croissant

I spent $12 today. Coffee for $4. A croissant for $6. And I felt rich.

That’s not a joke. That’s the math of a life where $12 buys you a morning, a warm pastry, and fifteen minutes of pretending the rent doesn’t exist.

The text came in right after I paid. A friend suggested I walk dogs. I told her yes—because a dog’s walk pays for tomorrow’s coffee. But no buyers yet.

I haven’t done Lyft since that rider who banged on the back of the passenger headrest—repeatedly—to demonstrate how noisy her gym was. While she quickly apologized for banging it a conga drum, it was jarring.

I haven’t driven into East Oakland since then, either. The fear sits in my chest like an anvil. I am a great driver, but got stuffed. But I also remember that I used to drive into the city for casual carpooling, and I used to feel safe. Maybe I can do that. Maybe not tonight. But maybe.

I don’t know how I’m paying next month’s rent. I don’t know how I’m paying the studio. But I know that only some money is coming in. And that might be just enough to cover the floor under my feet.

So I’m sitting here, with my coffee, with my croissant, writing this down.

And I’m realizing: I am happy. Not because I have money. But because I am doing something. I am working towards a future. I am writing. I am alive in a way that feels meaningful.

That $12 bought me more than food today. It bought me permission to believe that things are coming together.

They are. Slowly. Crumb by crumb.

The PostScript

About the Series:

THEM CATS transforms 38 years of Tess’ therapy into visual healing. Created by Tess McCarthy (who signs as T.McCarthy), each strip features imaginary conversations between two nameless, non-binary cats: One representing the creator, “Me Cat,” and one representing the therapist, “Therapist Cat.” A new character is a blue goateed cat named “New Therapist Cat.”

What started as a strange dream in April 2020 has become a revolutionary approach to processing trauma, growth, and the endless cycle of healing through simple, accessible art.

About Tess:

Tess is an information architect by day and a part-time Jungian coach specializing in helping clients with life transitions—stemming from consulting high-performance organizations who need help sorting out the messy business by blueprinting the structural data about their sites to become more legible in search.

She’s been a practicing coach for two years, a professional astrologer for six, and a tarot reader for over two decades. She weaves the archetypal lessons of these intuitive arts at her private practice, the Red Thread Intuitive, at redthreadintuitive.com.

Transcript

THEM CATS in “Cat Allergies”
by Tess McCarthy aka T.McCarthy
⸻
Panel 1
Me Cat (Yellow Cat):
“I’m allergic to cats!”
New Therapist Cat (Blue Cat):
“Ah!”
Me Cat (Yellow Cat):
“That’s a conundrum!”
⸻
Panel 2
Me Cat:
“Tell me about it!”
New Therapist Cat:
“Well…”
New Therapist Cat:
“It’s like aloe vera juice being acidic to itself!”
⸻
Panel 3
Me Cat:
“Oh. I thought you were going to say something else.”
New Therapist Cat:
“Well…”
New Therapist Cat:
“That’s my best analogy!”
⸻
Panel 4
Me Cat:
“I totally wasn’t prepared for that!”
New Therapist Cat:
“Ha! Ha!!!”
New Therapist Cat:
“Only the best for you!”

Text Near Blue Cat:
- fin

Darius the 6th:
“Touché”

Label Under Pink Mug:
DARIUS the VI

Resource of the Week: The CDC, Babes!

This week, my consultation of The Centers for Disease Control aka The CDC was accessed over 78 times in my web browsing! Being a former public librarian has taught me to consult timely and accurate resources. So while it’s not wholly a mental health resource, it ties onto our wellbeing. Pain, injury, and disease impact us in many ways.

Go to cdc.gov under their informational Yellow Book.

→ Zoonotic Exposures? Yes, please. Help: https://www.cdc.gov/yellow-book/hcp/environmental-hazards-risks/zoonotic-exposures.html

Update: THEMCATS.com is moving!

I was getting charged $30 for a product I wasn’t using. They said, “It’s a service, so, it’s a valid charge.”

So you know what I did? I announced leaving them on my site, themcats.com.

Well, read the fine print, right? I’ve got a billing practice concern. My concern is specifically rankingCoach Advanced. I didn’t need that!

I work in AI visibility, semantic architecture, and digital content strategy. I would not have knowingly continued paying for a generic ranking/SEO product that I was not actively using and that did not provide clear value to my business. Once I identified the charge, I immediately contacted IONOS to cancel the service and request review.

Before: Not the best user experience, and I hate all the padded spaces in the website editor

After: Take a look at what I did to stick it to the man…

Look. Why I’m frustrated:

• Huge amounts of whitespace

• Limited layout control

• One-font feeling

• Awkward media management

• Difficult image workflows

• Not built for someone like me who understands content architecture

Confession: I don't use AI to make THEM CATS. That would be a mortal sin.

That’s right, no AI was used in the making of THESE cats, but I use AI to check my grammar, punctuation, and to re-word things. I also use it for clarity because I’m mildly autistic, and severely mentally distracted. I also use AI to help me generate the transcripts for the comics. Because I hate typing.

The Post Script

THEM CATS & THEMCATS.COM - The therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions. Born from a strange dream in April 2020, these pointy-eared, fat-nosed cats transformed into the visual language millions didn’t know they needed to process their deepest pain and healing. Until now.

© 2026 T. McCarthy aka Tess McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS: A COMIC ABOUT MY THERAPY.

THEM CATS: The Ordinary Life or This Week’s Boring Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique Revealed!

Me Cat:
I had the most underwhelming past life that was ordinary and very boring.

Therapist Cat:
I thought past lives were EXTRA-ordinary

Me Cat:
Sometimes.

Old Therapist Cat:
What is it really about?

Me Cat:
Patterns.

Old Therapist Cat:
Patterns?

A Me Cat:
You know, finding the dots your conscious mind never connected.

My last QHHT (Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique) session was with Valerie Taylor who was a social worker now died this work for a living. I can’t make this stuff up, but in my past life last week, I was just an ordinary housewife who inherited her dead husband’s company—and turned it around!

FAKE THEM CATS: Semantic Interaction Architecture

Me Cat:
I’ve spent a month teaching AI how things connect.

Therapist Cat:
How’s that going?

Me Cat:
Pretty good.

Therapist Cat:
Excellent.

Me Cat:
Now I just need to teach myself.

Therapist Cat:
Did it work?

Me Cat:
Mostly.

Therapist Cat:
What’s missing?

Me Cat:
One relationship.

Therapist Cat:
Which one?

Me Cat:
The one between what I know and what I believe.

Resource of the Week:

The Feelings Wheel (Or Naming It/Claiming It/Taming It)

One of the most useful tools I’ve ever encountered in therapy is the Feelings Wheel.

Many of us can identify three emotions:

• Fine

• Stressed

• Angry

The wheel helps expand emotional vocabulary by showing how broader feelings branch into more specific experiences. My dad was very simple this way. He was almost always mad, happy, and sometimes bummed out.

But, we don’t want to blow through life like me belated & beloved pop.

So, let’s build on the top three:

• Angry → frustrated → resentful

• Sad → lonely → abandoned

• Fearful → insecure → inadequate

• Happy → hopeful → encouraged

Sometimes the hardest part of healing is naming it correctly. Brene Brown talks about that in The Atlas of the Heart. In her latest, Atlas of the Heart, researched and organized dozens of emotions, experiences, and emotional states, arguing that language shapes our ability to understand and navigate emotions.

When we can name an experience more precisely, we often gain more choice in how we respond to it.

This week, I sent a Feelings Wheel to one of my coaching clients. It reminded me that clarity isn’t always about finding answers. Maybe because we’re not taught to express our feelings. So, beyond identifying it, it’s also about finding better language.

Check it, before you wreck it
The next time someone asks how you’re doing, don’t stop at “fine.” Don’t explain. Really color those feelings.

See if you can identify a feeling one or two layers deeper. You may surprise yourself.

But, she’d say, “If you can’t name it, you can’t tame it.”

Rationale

As both a Semantic Interaction Architecture consultant, a coach and a former public librarian, I’m fascinated by language. The moment we have a word for something, we can begin to work with it.

If we can name it, we claim it.

My Favorites

• - The Feelings Wheel (Gloria Willcox)

• - The Atlas of Emotions (Awesome!)

Insight Timer Feelings Wheel

• https://insighttimer.com/blog/feelings-wheel/

The classic Feelings Wheel

• https://feelingswheel.com

The Post Script

DEEPER THAN CONNECTING THE DOTS: WHY AI NEEDS TRANSLATORS
One of the things I’ve learned from therapy is that healing often comes from recognizing relationships we couldn’t see before. Like: The relationship between a memory and a feeling. A belief and a behavior. A wound versus a coping mechanism.

Lately, I’ve been exploring a similar idea in my professional work.

As an information architect and metadata specialist, I’m developing a practice called Semantic Interaction Architecture (SIA) — helping AI systems understand not just information, but the relationships between information.

In other words:

Semantic Interaction Architecture is about how people, ideas, projects, organizations, publications, and experiences connect.

Because meaning rarely lives in isolated facts. Meaning lives in relationships.

If you’re curious about that work, you can find my ongoing series, The Translation Layer, in The Curiosity Archive on LinkedIn.

The cats may be talking about therapy.

But lately, I’ve begun to suspect they’re also talking about knowledge graphs too:

That’s one, big massive ontology! Most recently, I’ve been experimenting with Simple Knowledge Graphs (SKGs). These are lightweight relationship maps that help AI systems understand how people, projects, publications, businesses, and ideas connect.

You can read more about that work here.

On the Coaching Front

I’m currently completing my certification studies through the Jung Platform while continuing to develop Red Thread Intuitive (which is my Jungian Coaching and Astrology practice). Recently I completed my Jungian coaching midterm, where I found myself returning to a familiar theme:

Most transformation—for me—happens when the dots between things we already know solidify.

That said, I’m also building the RTI Network, which is a directory of practitioners, therapists, coaches, healers, artists, and thoughtful humans I trust enough to recommend.

If you’d like to be considered for inclusion, reach out!

On the Poetry Front

My newest poetry project is NEW MORNINGS: Instructions for the Dead.

The collection explores grief, memory, continuation, and the strange ways our relationships persist after loss. Forget about my other MorningPoems projects like “Ladies of the Lake,” and “In Radical, Open Territory,” and “Mornings.”

This new batch of poems were written after the death of friends, mentors, and loved ones, and ask a simple question:

How do we continue loving people after they’re gone?

Selections appear periodically through MorningPoems at tessmccarthy.substack.com

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist forward lifestyle & poetry/art/photography publication. Its mission is to elucidate the work of the world’s most creative outliers. We celebrate rebels, renaissance women/femmes, BIPOC, Queer/LGBTQIA, disabled & aged creative forces

THEM CATS & THEMCATS.COM - The therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions. Born from a strange dream in April 2020, these pointy-eared, fat-nosed cats transformed into the visual language millions didn’t know they needed to process their deepest pain and healing. Until now.

© 2026 T. McCarthy aka Tess McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media. All rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS: ABOUT MY THERAPY.

“Grief is enough to carry.” - Me Cat.

Resource of the Week

Since I just got beck from a funeral and processing, I thought to leave you all with this:

• https://www.helpguide.org/mental-health/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss

Post Script

The inspiration of this comic is based on this episode from The Peanuts:

🏈 https://youtu.be/i1wib_Pcn9A?si=pWwMBS0mi9bNbcZp

Follow me on MorningPoems at https://substack.com/@tessmccarthy

I can barely write—but I wanna say: I love you all who read this.

Transcript

THEM CATS in “The Story of My Life”

(or the adventures of Me Cat & New Therapist Cat)

Panel 1:

New Therapist Cat (blue cat) says:

“You have so, so many tools being in therapy for so long.”

Me Cat (yellow cat) replies:

“Tell me about it.”

Panel 2:

New Therapist Cat says:

“You know, one tool can fix a Chevy and other tools can fix an electric car!”

Me Cat replies:

“Tell me about it.”

Panel 3:

New Therapist Cat says:

“You need to write a book!”

Me Cat sighs and says:

“Story of my life.”

About THEM CATS

THEM CATS is hand-drawn comic about therapy, therapy fatigue, over-analysis, self-help overload, and the emotional exhaustion of trying to optimize a deeply complicated inner life.

I haven’t updated my THEMCATS.com website, so I’ll have to capture my workflow, and see how I can build a script that will automate uploading and annotating each episode, then generating a link to it.

Right now, the home page has the most crudely drawn comic on it—the crudest of the century.

Yes, I still think the first comic was funny.

Tess? Did you say teachable memoir?

The story of my life!

I guess Substack is thee place to announce you’re writing a memoir. You Why not? It’s got a big audience. I know, I know.

For the longest, I didn’t want to tell my story.”, but now, the New Therapist has been prodding me—in a good way.

It’s late: night 🌙

COPYRIGHT: THEM CATS™ © 2026 T. McCarthy / Visual Liquid Media

I was in WeHo, then Los Feliz. I was doing a writer’s retreat with friends who are also writing about their origins in L.A.—where I was born.

The Blue Duck in the Mirror is a modern fairytale I created out of my Jungian certification program. If you don’t know: I’m getting certified as a Jungian coach on top of the Human AI Semantic Interaction Architecture I do by day.

I’m trying to build a life where both can exist. On one end, I love helping people 1:1 making sense of their “inner” content. On another level, I love helping groups make sense of their content.

Jungian coaching was a way to blend Astrology and Tarot I had been doing for years since I read in an archetypal fashion. I currently offer shadow coaching, dream analysts and do astrology with my clients.

But back to the exercise: we were supposed to create a fairytale of our own . Mine is take on the Cinderella story with a Dorian Gray mashed up into it.

I use a digital sketchbook. Here are some I kicked out while in LA…

Things will never be the same

Meet New Therapist Cat…

I’m headed down to LA—love you, mss yoi, see you soon.

—Tess

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Life Without Therapist Cat: A Comic About Losing Therapy

It comes with a heavy heart to say I can’t imagine drawing Therapist Cat this week when I ended therapy with my IRL therapist on Monday. We saw each other for 8 years.

This is one of my favorite drawings of Therapist Cat

8 years is almost the amount of time I saw my previous therapist, Marcia who died suddenly in a car accident. Losing a therapist to death is one thing. Losing a therapist to the inability to pay for treatment is another. Both hurt. Earlier today, I wrote something in Notes—saying that THEM CATS wouldn’t be the same without our little orange Therapist Cat who does nothing but support Me Cat, week after week. Read it here.

Resource of the Week: Psychology Today

The print and online magazine, Psychology Today, has become “thee” directory for therapists in the United States. Psychology Today became the de facto therapist directory in the U.S. by doing one thing well:

• it structured therapists as searchable profiles—by specialty, insurance, location, and approach.

It works because it labels people clearly enough to be found.

And that mattered to me.

My first therapist in San Francisco didn’t have the warmth I needed. She felt too rigid, too closed off. At the time, my ex didn’t want me to change therapists.

I fought for it anyway.

That’s how I found Marcia.

I remember seeing her profile on Psychology Today—how she described her work, how she showed up on the page. It was enough to pull me in. I wanted a therapist who got me. I needed a queer therapist.

There was no question once I saw her.

When I lost Marcia in 2018, I tried looking elsewhere—like Gaylesta. It was a more curated space, but I couldn’t find enough detail to make a decision.

And the truth is—there was no replacing her.

So I went back to Psychology Today.

And that’s how I found Stevie.

Stevie was a departure from Marcia. But it was exactly what I needed. When COVID hit, we had to move from therapy in person to online. That was a rough adjustment because I was used to in-person therapy. When Stevie eventually left the Bay Area in 2022, she said something to the effect that she had to leave because she couldn’t see a future for her in the Bay Area. But I was there—a part of me thought. A more mature part of me thought, “Wow, that’s ballsy. Go you.”

Her leaving forced me to face myself in a way I wasn’t ready for. It left a real hole. It took time to adjust.

I could still see her online—but not in person.

So I did something instinctive:

I drew myself as a cat. I drew another cat.
And I let them talk. And I made the other cat speak the way my therapist—and all the therapists who came before her—would talk.

That’s how THEM CATS was born. Because I missed seeing her in the flesh, I externalized her by drawing myself as a cat, and her as a cat talking. I fashioned the characters out of a comic I did in 2020, and then, THEM CATS was born.

My Therapy Answers on Quora: I could write an advice column…

Over the course of 10 years, I’ve written over 353 answers on Quora—the bulk of which are about therapy, therapists, and the therapeutic process.

Here are some of my latest—

• Why do some people get really upset when their therapist changes their time slot, while others seem to handle it calmly?

• How does a therapist help a client transition from an unhealthy attachment to a healthy one over time?

• Why is owning your story important in therapy?
  I like this one. A lot.

THE POST SCRIPT

VISUAL LIQUID MEGAZINE is a feminist forward lifestyle & poetry/art/photography publication. Its mission is to elucidate the work of the world’s most creative outliers. We celebrate rebels, renaissance women/femmes, BIPOC, Queer/LGBTQIA, disabled & aged creative forces

THEMCATS.COM - The therapeutic comic about two nameless, non-binary cats in therapy sessions has a new domain at themcats.com!

Born from a strange dream in April 2020, these pointy-eared, fat-nosed cats transformed into the visual language millions didn’t know they needed to process their deepest pain and healing. Until now.

THEM CATS™ // © 2026 by T.McCarthy, all rights reserved worldwide. THEM CATS™ is an ongoing comic about therapy, grief, and the conversations we learn to have with ourselves. It’s a story about two nameless, non-binary cats talking in therapy sessions.

It’s working…I just want to clear my subconscious cobwebs out.

Does Hypnosis Work?

For me it does. It’s a way to dream out loud.

Your Mama…

Today and Sunday I’ll be doing astrology readings at the Sunshine Prophecy (Thursday 4/23) and at the Mother Tongue Coffee Bar & Cafe (Sunday 4/26).

Have my creative & healing work taken a backdrop to my AI consulting work? Yes and no. I’ve scaled everything down to touch everything I love to do.

Brevity is the price I pay. See you in the real world, my friends!

See you next week…

Do you like my shorter posts? Is it quality or quantity? Leave a comment below…

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