Moving from social networks to visual metaphors with the Relational Mapping Interview

Boden, Zoë V. R. and Larkin, Michael (2021). Moving from social networks to visual metaphors with the Relational Mapping Interview. In: Reavey, Paula ed. A Handbook of Visual Methods in Psychology [2nd Edition]. Routledge, pp. 358–375.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351032063-2420

Abstract

This chapter describes how to undertake a relational mapping interview (RMI) and how to analyse the visual data created in this approach from an experiential research project that explored the relationships of young people (18-25 years) under the care of Early Intervention Services for Psychosis, which are community outreach services providing biopsychosocial interventions for first-episode psychosis. The RMI aims to be an encounter, not an interrogation, and so is not a linear set of questions but a framework for communicating relational experience in non-linear ways. Unlike a traditional semi-structured interview, RMIs follow an ‘interview arc’ and use the format of ‘draw–talk–draw–talk’. To aid both interviewer and participant to navigate the participant’s experience, the RMI consists of four touchpoints: mapping the self; mapping important others; standing back; and considering change. The RMI provides data that is rich and polysemous, whilst also being experience-near and subjective in focus.

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