Using the card sort in your practice
Session structure, questions worth asking, couples work, documentation, and printable materials. Everything here is a starting point; your clinical judgment leads.
Where it fits
The Personal Values Card Sort comes out of Motivational Interviewing, where values exploration helps develop discrepancy: the felt difference between how a client is living and what they care about most, which strengthens their own reasons for change (Miller & Rollnick, 2023). It fits equally well in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, where clarified values anchor committed action (Hayes et al., 2006), and it adapts naturally to narrative, existential, career, and couples work. The research page covers the evidence in detail, including the self-affirmation literature behind the writing step.
Three ways to run it
In session. In the room, hand the client a tablet or your laptop. In telehealth, have the client open the site on their own device and share their screen; the sorting has to happen under their fingers, and much of what you learn comes from watching them do it. Decide beforehand whether you want a think-aloud sort (rich, slower) or a quiet sort with discussion after. Pause on hesitations: "you held onto that card for a while" is often the door to the most useful material of the hour.
Between sessions. Assign the sort as homework with the client instruction sheet. The site saves progress on the client's device, and they can print, copy, or save their results to bring back. Their written reflections come along on the printout.
On paper. Some clients think better with physical cards. Print our card deck (the same 83 values, restyled for clean printing, with a no-cutting business-card-sheet option) or the original 2001 deck from UNM CASAA, and have the client record their results on the recording worksheet.
One way to structure a session
A 40 to 50 minute shape that many clinicians will recognize. Adapt freely.
Frame it (2 to 3 min)
Not a test, no right answers, sort by what is true now rather than what should matter. Encourage the client to go with their gut: first reactions tend to reflect what actually matters, while deliberating invites sorting by what should. Ambivalence about where a card belongs is material, not a problem.
Sort (10 to 15 min)
Client sorts all 83 cards into the three piles. Watch for held cards, quick discards, and cards they narrate. If the Very Important pile grows large, normalize it; narrowing comes next.
Narrow and rank (10 min)
Very Important pile down to ten, then five, then ranked. The trade-offs are the intervention. "What made that one win?" is usually more productive than "why did that one lose?"
Explore the gap (10 to 15 min)
For each top value, a scaling question: "On a 0 to 10 scale, how fully are you living this right now?" Then the MI follow-ups: "What makes it a 4 and not a 2?" and "What would one point higher look like?" The first invites self-affirmation; the second invites change talk.
Commit to one small step (5 min)
One value, one concrete action before next session, ideally the client's own words. Keep it small enough that it will actually happen.
Questions worth exploring
- What was it like to choose only five?
- Which cards were hardest to place? What was the pull in each direction?
- Which pile surprised you? Is anything in Very Important there because it should be?
- How does your week actually spend itself, compared with this list?
- Which of these values did you inherit, and which did you choose?
- Which value is most under threat right now, and by what?
- Think of a recent decision you felt good about. Which of these values was it honoring?
- If the people closest to you saw this list, what would surprise them?
Couples & families
Have each person complete the sort separately, without conferring. On the results screen, each partner can save a session file; the "Compare with a partner's sort" button then shows both ranked top 5s side by side, with shared values, values high for both, values distinct to each person, and discussion prompts. Overlaps build connection; differences give structure to conversations that otherwise go in circles. It can help to frame a partner's distinct value as information about what nourishes them, rather than as a competing demand.
Documentation
What clinicians typically find worth recording: the ranked top five (the printout includes it verbatim), any 0 to 10 living ratings you elicited, notable process observations (long-held cards, surprises the client named), the client's written reflections if they consent to share them, and the committed step with its target date. A re-sort after six to twelve months, compared against the first, makes progress visible in the client's own language.
Worth setting up now for that re-sort: have the client save a session file from their results screen now. When they sort again later, the "Compare with a partner's sort" button accepts their own earlier file just as readily as a partner's, producing a then-versus-now view: values in both top fives, plus what appears only in the earlier sort or only in the new one. The two sorts can be labeled on screen, for example "January" and "Today."
Printable materials
Everything a paper workflow needs. All of it may be copied freely.
All 83 value cards plus sorting headers and blank cards, restyled for clean printing. Cardstock recommended.
Recording worksheetA one-page sheet for paper sorts: top ten, ranked top five with reflections, and one small step.
Client homework sheetA one-page instruction handout for assigning the sort between sessions, online or on paper.
A complete kit for one client is one printed deck plus one worksheet; add the homework sheet if they'll finish between sessions. For groups, the business-card-sheet layout makes producing several decks fast. The interactive version prints its own results, including the client's written reflections, from the results screen. The original 2001 deck PDF remains available from UNM CASAA; our deck carries the same content without the index numbers and revision dates printed on the original.
Privacy and data
Everything on this site runs in the visitor's browser: no accounts, no server, no data collection. Progress is saved only on the client's own device, and "Start over" erases it. Session files are ordinary files the client controls. As with any digital tool, follow your own professional judgment and organizational policies.