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Why Map And Talk?

  • It helps us track and develop our conversations so we can share our thinking and see more easily who said or meant what.

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  • We can show and share our mixed feelings about complicated issues and we can draw out patterns from stories. â€‹ We can link these patterns to the interactions that shape our identities and personalities

Why mapping matters now?

  • Because if we want to change our world for the better, we need to talk more about our experience of it and share our ideas. This is easier with words on paper between us.​

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  • Because we need slow thinking in a fast world.  Mapping together helps us slow down and see what we are saying.

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  • Because mapping can help sort our personal thinking from ideology and opinion; 
    It helps us hold in mind multiple points of view and conflicting feelings.

Image by Ben White

Why should you learn it?

  • Because the most important things we need to talk about, are the hardest to discuss​.

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  • Mapping reduces the shame or blame of not knowing what is going on or knowing how to say it;

       As we map and remap the relationships with ourselves and others we rekindle, rework and                                 re-consolidate our memories.

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  • The words spread out on the map can help us see the patterns to what we are struggling to say;

       It helps us find the words with legs on that can help us explore.

Image by Daniel Fazio

Why does map and talk help?  

  • Mapping helps enable an open quality of listening together and keep track of where the conversation is going.  When we talk well together, we are thinking out loud

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  • Mapping helps us reflect on the process of talking whilst comparing and contrasting each other’s ideas.

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  • We are negotiating our feelings and thoughts and this quality of conversation opens our minds, training them to be in more reflective dialogue

Image by Aarón Blanco Tejedor

  • When we recap and review the conversation through the words written spontaneously on the map to keep track of it, we can shape where our discussions go. 

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  • Ultimately mapping and talking helps improve our reflective capacity through enabling our ability to hover and shimmer, zoom in and out between picture and detail, make links between past and present, self and others, one part of our lives and another part.

Therapy space + reflective mapping= relational awareness 

If we create a space which is therapeutic (whether with a therapist or on our own or with friends or activities) and combine it with reflective mapping then we are likely to create the conditions for relational awareness.  Find out more about why mapping helps

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