These Mapping Worksheets were selected from the manual TCU Guide Maps: A Resource for Counselors because of their specific focus on thoughts and actions.

Each mapping worksheet follows a “fill in the blank” format to encourage participants to consider thinking patterns and how to change cognitive distortions. Once participants complete their worksheet, group discussions and commentary on applying new ways of thinking to past and current problems and life situations can be explored.

Why a “map”?

The purpose of this section is to introduce a promising technique that can be used by counselors to help clients represent and resolve personal issues. There is research that validates the effectiveness of this tool in the counseling process, so we give you some background and a quick look at the major research findings on maps.

Types of Maps.

Node-link maps are tools that can visually portray ideas, feelings, facts, and experiences. There are three broad categories of these maps:
Free or process maps
Information maps
Guide maps (the focus of this section).

As you can see from the examples, the nodes in a map are drawn as enclosed boxes and represent thoughts, actions, or feelings. The map links are simple lines with arrows that are labeled to show the direction of influence and the interrelationships among the nodes.

Free or process maps: Using a chalkboard, flip chart, paper and pencil, or computer, client(s) and counselor can work together to create a map of the problem or issue under discussion.

For examples of the use of free mapping, see Mapping New Roads to Recovery: Cognitive Enhancements to Counseling, Dansereau, Dees, Chatham, Boatler, and Simpson, 1993. Available at http://www.ibr.tcu.edu/).

Information maps: They have been used in academic settings where research has showed them to be powerful study tools. These maps organize facts in a specific content area and present them in an easy-to-remember format. The first research on mapping was done with college students, who could remember more main ideas from maps than from comparable texts.

Guide maps: These are pre-structured templates with a “fill-in-the-space” format that guides the client’s thinking within a specific framework (e.g., personal strengths, goals), and allows ample freedom for self-expression.

In a group setting, a guide map can be used to focus and keep a discussion on track. As an individual activity, it provides a structure for thinking about and organizing to otherwise nebulous personal issues.

In group work, the map can provide some assurance that each group member has had a chance to visit a particular issue personally, even if there has been insufficient session time for each of them to air those issues within the group.

Roots and Rationale. Node-link maps have an empirical base in research dealing with the effects of using two dimensional visual representations. These graphic representations are frequently found to be more effective than verbal discourse or written narrative in dealing with complex problems and issues.

Flowcharts, organizational charts, Venn diagrams, pictures, and graphs can increase communication efficiency by making related ideas easier to locate and recognize, and, as a result, potentially more amenable to inferences and recall. The physical formats of spoken language or written narrative are linear “strings” of ideas.

Visual representations, on the other hand, have the capability of simultaneously clustering interrelated components to show complex multiple relationships such as parallel lines of thought and feedback loops.

Problem-Solving: Personal problems may be complex, making them both difficult to analyze and emotionally daunting to resolve.

A visual representation such as a node-link map can capture the most important aspects of a personal issue and make alternatives more salient for both the client and the counselor.

Because this has the potential to make a problem appear more manageable and a solution more probable, it may diffuse at least some of the anxiety surrounding the issue, as well as increase motivation to work toward a solution.

Evidence-Base: In 1989, maps were first studied as personal management tools for college students in substance abuse prevention research (Tools for Improving Drug and Alcohol Education and Prevention, D.F. Dansereau, Principal Investigator) sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

At the same time, through the NIDA-sponsored DATAR (Drug Abuse Treatment for AIDS Risk Reduction) project, (D. D. Simpson, Principal Investigator) maps were introduced to methadone maintenance clients and their counselors in three urban Texas programs.

Findings from this research were quite positive. A second DATAR project (Improving Drug Abuse Treatment for AIDS-Risk Reduction) and the NIDA-sponsored CETOP project (Cognitive Enhancements for the Treatment of Probationers; D. F. Dansereau, PI) confirmed maps as useful counseling tools.

The CETOP project did so with a particularly tough client pool, probationers in a criminal justice system treatment program. A summary of major findings from the four research projects follows, with referenced research articles that support each finding.

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Excerpted from Unlock Your Thinking - Open Your Mind - A collection of materials for leading counseling sessions that address thinking patterns that can hamper behavior change.

http://www.ibr.tcu.edu/_private/manuals/BriefInterventions/BI(05Aug)-mind.pdf