Holey Theory Reflection Assessment
A structural map of what your system has carried, and what it is already rebuilding.
This is not a test of what’s “wrong” with you.
It’s a way of seeing what happened to your system, how it adapted, and where healing is already quietly underway.
For survivors of incest, developmental trauma, and long-term relational harm, life can feel like living inside a structure that was never designed for safety. One you didn’t choose, didn’t build, and have been expected to function inside anyway. You may sense that something fundamental shifted long ago, even if you’ve never had language for it.
This reflection assessment exists to offer that language.
Not to label you.
Not to measure your worth.
But to help you understand how your internal system learned to survive, and how it is learning to reorganize now.
This assessment helps you notice:
- Where your system is still carrying survival load
- Where integration and stability are already emerging
- How stress and healing currently interact inside you
What you’ll see here is not a verdict. It’s a snapshot of organization, taken with care.
What This Assessment Looks At
System Load (Entropy)
This reflects how much unresolved stress, fragmentation, or survival pressure is still active inside your system.
It includes patterns such as:
- Persistent alertness or fear
- Emotional shutdown or disconnection
- Intense emotional swings
- Body-based stress and exhaustion
- Shame that feels fused with identity
These patterns are not flaws. They are evidence of how much your system has had to hold.
System Capacity (Coherence)
This reflects how much regulation, integration, and internal alignment your system has already built; often quietly, often without being recognized.
It includes capacities such as:
- The ability to calm or steady yourself
- Awareness of your own patterns without collapse
- Relational discernment and boundaries
- A growing sense of meaning or direction
- Inner parts working together rather than against each other
These are not traits you either “have or don’t have.” They are skills and capacities that grow through safety, understanding, and time.
How to Approach This Reflection
Step 1: Respond Gently
You’ll be invited to rate a series of statements about your body, emotions, relationships, and inner experience. There is no need to overthink your answers. Go with what feels most true right now.
Step 2: Let the Patterns Emerge
The assessment looks at patterns across different domains rather than individual answers. This helps reveal structure, not symptoms.
Step 3: Reflect Without Judgment
Your results will include plain-language reflections and gentle suggestions (not prescriptions) offering insight into what your system may need next.
Before You Begin
Take a breath. You can move through this all at once or pause and return later.
There are no “good” or “bad” outcomes here. Only information, offered in service of understanding, not self-criticism.
Important note: This tool is for reflection and education. It is not a medical or psychiatric assessment. If anything that arises feels heavy, you deserve support; whether that’s a therapist, a trusted person, or a healing space that feels safe to you.
Holey Theory Self-Reflection Assessment
Rate each statement from 0 (not true for me) to 10 (very true for me). All items are optional. Blank responses are counted as 0.
Section A — System Load (Stress & Survival Imprint)
Section B — System Capacity (Stability, Integration, Meaning)
AFTER THE ASSESSMENT
Making Sense of What You’re Seeing
Why These Domains Exist
The Holey Theory Reflection Assessment looks at two broad forces that shape the internal organization of a human system after trauma:
- System Load: the degree to which survival responses, stress, and fragmentation are still active
- System Capacity: the degree to which regulation, integration, meaning, and internal cooperation are available
Each domain reflects a well-documented dimension of trauma impact or healing capacity, grounded in neuroscience, attachment theory, systems theory, and lived experience.
The System Load Domains
These areas reflect how trauma most commonly increases strain within a human system:
- Threat Activation: how often the body remains in “danger mode”
- Disconnection: how the system protects itself through numbness or shutdown
- Emotional Reactivity: how unresolved stress amplifies emotional intensity
- Body Stress: how trauma lives in sleep, pain, fatigue, and tension
- Shame-Based Identity: how meaning collapses inward when blame has nowhere else to go
High activation in these areas does not mean you are failing. It means your system learned powerful strategies to survive conditions that exceeded what any person should have to endure.
The System Capacity Domains
These areas reflect the capacities that support reorganization and healing:
- Regulation: the nervous system’s ability to return from activation
- Self-Awareness: the ability to notice patterns without being consumed by them
- Relational Safety: discernment, boundaries, and choice in connection
- Meaning & Direction: a stabilizing sense of purpose or inner alignment
- Internal Cooperation: parts of the self working together rather than in conflict
These capacities do not erase pain. They change how pain moves through the system.
How to Read Your Results
Your results are not a diagnosis. They are not a ranking. They are not a prediction.
They show how your system is currently organized, based on what it has lived through and what support it has had access to so far.
Some areas may feel tender. Some may surprise you with their strength.
Both matter.
Healing does not happen all at once. It happens as systems gain enough safety to reorganize; layer by layer, at their own pace.
A Note About Numbers
If you notice scores or summaries, remember: numbers are only shorthand for patterns. They are meant to clarify (not define) you.
What matters most is not where you are today, but that your system is capable of change.
You Are Not Your Results
Whatever you saw here:
- It reflects adaptation, not defect
- It reflects burden, not weakness
- It reflects a system that survived, and is still capable of repair
Healing is not about becoming someone new. It is about allowing your system to reclaim the structure, dignity, and coherence that trauma disrupted.
You are allowed to be exactly where you are. Nothing about this moment disqualifies you from healing.
0 Comments