TEG-Blue · The Emotional Gradient Blueprint
The Nervous System Gradient
We do not stay the same in every situation — open and trusting one moment, guarded or controlling the next. These shifts are not random. They are state changes in the nervous system.
The body keeps reading one question — is it safe, or is there danger? — faster than thought. Its answer lands the whole system on one line: rest and connection at the safe end, defence and control as threat rises, and shutdown when mobilisation cannot form.
Acute Connection
also known as social engagement
autonomic state — parasympathetic · ventral vagal
Safety with others — social engagement and co-regulation are available.
Safety through connection
The state sets the filter on the world: in safety, the whole situation can be taken in; under threat, attention selects for what matters to protection, risk, escape, or control.
Cognitive Science — state-dependent perception (Barrett, Kahneman) + neuroception
What the gradient explains
From personal patterns to societal systems
The same shape can be read from one nervous system to families, institutions, and whole groups. It helps explain how harm forms without excusing the harm.
Why care is not always enough — under threat, empathy narrows even when intent is good.
How harm can become normal — when empathy stays offline for too long, the cost to others stops being fully registered.
How defence hardens into control — repeated protection can become rule, punishment, exclusion, or system logic.
Language for shifts as they happen — recognised as state changes without reducing people to character.
A route back to connection — repair begins with the state the system is actually in, and with enough safety for empathy to return.
The map
The seven states, in order
One continuum, from physiological baseline through social engagement, protection, control, domination, and shutdown. Each state is a whole-system configuration: when the state changes, perception, cognition, awareness, empathy, action, and repair change with it.
- XBaseline
Safe & at rest · SAFETY · rest-and-digest · parasympathetic
Physiological baseline — restoration and broad capacity are available.
Chronic — Elevated baseline — restoration does not fully complete
- AConnection / Belonging
Safe with others · SAFETY · social engagement · parasympathetic · ventral vagal
Safety with others — social engagement and co-regulation are available.
Chronic — Connection / Belonging — safety is displayed without full access
- A↔BSafety Checking
Is it still safe? · UNCERTAINTY · parasympathetic → sympathetic
Relational uncertainty — the system checks whether safety still holds.
Chronic — Safety Checking — the safety question remains unresolved
- BProtection / Defence
Threat · THREAT · fight · flight · fawn · sympathetic
Threat — mobilisation prioritises boundary, distance, or defence.
Chronic — Protection / Defence — mobilisation stays held
- CControl / Management
Bigger threat · BIGGER THREAT · cognitive control / management · sympathetic + vagal brake
Sustained threat — cognition organises around management and control.
Chronic — Control / Management — management becomes the regulation route
- DDomination
Life threat · LIFE THREAT · power mobilisation · sympathetic
Life threat — power mobilisation overrides relational access.
Chronic — Domination — power becomes the regulation route
- ZShutdown
Shutdown · SHUTDOWN · freeze · collapse · parasympathetic · dorsal vagal
Overwhelm — mobilisation drops and conservation becomes primary.
Chronic — Persistent Shutdown — collapse becomes the running organisation
Grounding
Research grounding and source traces
The architecture leads, and the public framework shows where established research converges withspecific parts of the map. These are source traces and grounding points, not a claim that the whole system has clinical validation.
The gradient / autonomic hierarchy
Polyvagal Theory — autonomic hierarchy and neuroception · Porges
State / activation
Polyvagal Theory (three states) + Stress Physiology · Porges · Sapolsky · McEwen
Perception
Cognitive Science — state-dependent perception + neuroception · Barrett · Kahneman
Cognition
Cognitive Science — cognitive load, state-dependent · Bower · Kahneman · Barrett
Self-awareness
Interoception — internal signalling and the sense of self · A. D. Craig
Empathy
Interpersonal Neurobiology + Polyvagal social engagement · Siegel · Porges
Body / activation
Stress Physiology — acute activation → allostatic load · Sapolsky · McEwen
Time horizon
Cognitive Science + Stress Physiology (threat compresses the horizon) · Kahneman · Sapolsky
Emotions / signals
Affective Neuroscience + Emotion Science · Panksepp · Damasio · Barrett · LeDoux
Behaviour / response
Polyvagal (mobilise / immobilise) + Trauma Research · Porges · Levine · van der Kolk
Repair
Trauma Research (completion of defence) + Attachment (co-regulation) · Levine · van der Kolk · Bowlby
Rush / tempo
Tachypsychia + hurry sickness / hyperarousal · Stress Physiology · Cognitive Science
Use and attribution
Authorship and use
TEG-Blue and The Nervous System Gradient were created by Anna Paretas-Artacho. Public framework content is published under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: attribution is required, use must be non-commercial, and adaptations must be shared under the same license. View license.
Commercial, institutional, product, model, or dataset integration requires explicit permission or a separate license.
Questions
Common questions
What is TEG-Blue?
TEG-Blue is The Emotional Gradient Blueprint: a layered visual framework that maps how emotions, nervous systems, survival strategies, identity, and social patterns form and evolve. Its current public center is the Nervous System Gradient.
What is the Nervous System Gradient?
The Nervous System Gradient is a map of the nervous system’s states. The nervous system continuously appraises one question — is it safe, or is there danger? — faster than conscious thought, and shifts the whole organism into the state that fits what it found, along a single continuum from rest, through connection and the defences, down to shutdown.
How does the nervous system choose a state?
Through neuroception — a continuous, pre-conscious read of safety versus danger. Based on that read, the system organises itself into one of seven ordered states: X, A, A↔B, B, C, D, and Z. Each state is a complete configuration of perception, cognition, the body, feeling, and behaviour — not a mood.
What is the difference between a passing state and a chronic one?
Each position is a passing response the system is built to move through and leave (acute). When a position cannot be left, it stops being a passing response and hardens into the default (chronic). The chronic reading shows restriction, repetition and substitute routing — it describes a system that cannot leave a state, never a verdict about a person.
What research is the Nervous System Gradient grounded in?
The architecture leads; established research provides grounding for specific claims. The gradient’s autonomic hierarchy draws from Polyvagal Theory (Porges); activation and chronic load from Stress Physiology (Sapolsky, McEwen); state-dependent perception and cognition from Cognitive Science (Barrett, Kahneman); interoception from A. D. Craig; empathy from Interpersonal Neurobiology (Siegel); emotions from Affective Neuroscience (Panksepp, Damasio, LeDoux); defence and repair from Trauma Research (Levine, van der Kolk) and Attachment (Bowlby).
What are fight, flight, fawn and freeze?
They are familiar names for points on the gradient. Fight, flight and fawn are defensive expressions of Protection (mobilised self-protection under threat). Freeze and collapse are Shutdown (the system conserves when mobilisation cannot form). Rest-and-digest is Baseline; social engagement is Connection.