#HealthBehaviourMapping: A #PsychMapping application

Researcher: Dr Alexander T. Latinjak, Professor Valerie Gladwell, Emma Harvey-Lawrence, Scarlett Moloney & Dr Cleo Protogerou
Institute for Health and Wellbeing, School of Allied Health Sciences 

This project is based on research about the #KnoweldgeMap of Sport and Exercise Psychology and #SportPsychMapping. The #KnoweldgeMap is the outcome of a theoretical review of over 650 articles in sport and exercise psychology to create an organisation of research topics. Mainly, concepts used to study athletes and exercisers can be grouped in external variables, personal descriptors, and psychological skills. The simple yet holistic organisation of the #KnoweldgeMap made it possible to develop an exploratory interview task called #SportPsychMapping, thorough which consultant and client draw a visual map of the client’s psychological reality during a single session. The utility of #SportPsychMapping has raised interest in the sport psychology community and during 2021 the University of Suffolk has educated sport psychologists from all over the world in using the task. Our own experiences and many experiences of former students indicate that the exploratory interview task can be adapted to help, in health-behaviour contexts, clients and consultants understand and predict client’s past and future behaviour and select interventions to help them adapt or maintain a healthier lifestyle.