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Contemporary semiotic cultural tradition in psychology views human meaning making as unfolding through the negotiation of multiple real and imagined scenarios and storylines. While emphasising this complex and layered nature of meaning making, this research tradition offers little methodological guidance for appreciating and evidencing this multiplicity in data analysis and interpretation. This paper suggests that a methodological approach that combines visual and verbal ways of representing one’s personal stories might offer a useful alternative for evidencing the multiple meanings that individuals create about their personal journeys. By presenting two examples of drawn timeline images and corresponding interview extracts, the paper discusses how the chosen methodological approach offered opportunities for participants to ‘show and tell’ their complex and layered stories, and gave them freedom and agency to shape the research encounter and data production processes. The paper also highlights how the incorporation of visual methods into the methodology enabled the researcher to find alternative ways of interpreting participants’ stories. The paper argues for a purposeful integration of visual and verbal methods, where the semiotic tensions and clashes between these modes can reveal novel ways of seeing researchers’ and participants’ meanings in the making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary an alternative conceptual model of identity construction is proposed. In this model, identity construction is seen as part of a person's ongoing sense-making. Identity is perceived as a subjective sense of continuity and sameness that renders one's being in the world meaningful. Drawing on empirical examples provided in the target articles, it is shown how this model, which is built around the notions of rupture, identity dialogues and striving towards meaningfulness, can be utilized to analyse identity dynamics in different space and time contexts. The importance of examining links between an individual's sense-making and collective meaning field, in which sense-making is embedded, is also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]