This technique is used in the treatment process of adolescents who abuse psychoactive substances. The mapping technique incorporates graphic visualization tools during the process of user counseling. The maps help illustrate thoughts, feelings, actions, and goals, and show how they relate to each other.
This cognitive technique can be freestyle, in which case ideas, thoughts, and feelings are organized based on “nodes” and “links”; it can apply map guides, in which templates are used to create worksheets to help orient users; or it can use the information map model, which is used to communicate knowledge in “small doses”, which contributes to a rapid assimilation of information.