Scientific grounding

Which research grounds which part of the map

Different fields make different parts of the Gradient visible. TEG-Blue places those parts in relation. This page shows what the research supports, what TEG-Blue adds, and where each claim stops.

What “grounded in science” means here

Established fields each make one part of the pattern visible. TEG-Blue places those parts in relation. The research belongs to those fields; the integration is TEG-Blue’s contribution.

So the phrase carries four commitments at once:

1Research underwrites mechanisms, capacities, and patterns at specific, nameable points on the map.
2Each field remains itself. TEG-Blue does not blur the evidence base or claim the fields agree with each other.
3The integration is named as TEG-Blue’s, not attributed to the research.
4Where a claim outruns its source, the claim is marked rather than smoothed over.
It does not mean science proves TEG-Blue, that any one study or theory validates the architecture, or that the framework has been clinically validated as a whole.

What research shows about movement

Physiological responses change as conditions change. Studying that movement means observing the same person over time: what recruits a response, what sustains it, and what changes during recovery. Differences between people cannot, by themselves, establish how one person moves through an event.

Research findings. In a brain-imaging experiment, activity shifted between prefrontal and midbrain regions as a virtual predator approached. This supports a changing neural response to threat proximity in that task. Mobbs et al. (2007). In a separate study of 257 kindergarten-aged children, repeated cardiac measurements showed that coordination between sympathetic and parasympathetic influences varied within children across reward and frustration conditions. Gatzke-Kopp et al. (2020).

Recovery also differed across measurements in a laboratory study of 44 healthy adults. After an hour-long mental task, average heart rate fell below its pre-task level during early recovery, while blood pressure remained elevated throughout the 30-minute recovery period. These group results describe selected measures and a limited interval; they do not supply every person’s recovery timetable. Nilsen et al. (2007).

Grounded synthesis. These findings support examining changing responses in relation to their conditions and timescales. Different systems need not change together. A falling heart rate does not establish recovery in every system, and apparent calm does not establish responsive organisation, available flexibility or recovery. Physiological measures, reported experience and usable capacities need their own observations.

TEG-Blue integration. The Gradient brings these questions into a shared account of changing organisation. Its Positions describe reference organisations that a person may enter, sustain, revisit and leave. Movement can also occur within a Position. The studies above support component processes; they do not validate the seven-position arrangement, its boundaries or its proposed transitions. Testing those proposals requires repeated, independent measurements of the relevant capacities and responses under specified conditions.

How a source becomes part of the map

A source does more than sit beside a sentence. TEG-Blue asks what its finding makes visible, what function that finding helps explain, and where it belongs in the wider pattern:

fieldfindingfunctionproposed place in the maprelation to the whole

A citation supports a sentence. Established research underwrites part of the map. Those are different acts. Keeping them separate prevents the framework from borrowing authority the source does not provide.

Moving downstream does not strengthen a claim. A tool built from the Gradient is not evidence that the Gradient is validated.

Research areas behind the map

Each area is paired with the part of the map it helps explain and the point where its support runs out.

Biology and physiology

How a body mobilises energy, responds to demands, and recovers. These findings help explain changing organism-level organisation; relational repair requires evidence about actions and their effects.

Where it stops

It grounds how patterns organise in a body. It does not let anyone measure a state, infer physiology from behaviour, or treat the map as a biological assessment.

Autonomic neuroscience

How autonomic activity changes with conditions, and how sympathetic and parasympathetic influences can coordinate or vary separately. These findings inform components of the Gradient; they do not establish a single axis from safety to shutdown.

Where it stops

Naming a specific autonomic pathway is a citation-level claim, not a general one. No single theory of autonomic function proves the map.

Affective neuroscience

Primary emotional systems, emotional salience, and action readiness — why an emotion arrives with urgency attached rather than as a neutral report.

Where it stops

One brain model does not prove the whole framework. Where a named model is used, it is named.

Perception, attention, and appraisal

How attention narrows, how situations get appraised, and how prediction and memory shape what feels true. This underwrites the claim that state changes perception, not only feeling.

Where it stops

The map is not reducible to cognition. Showing that perception shifts is not showing that a person misperceived.

Interoception and body awareness

How inner signals become available, muted, or hard to name — and why losing contact with body state can leave thinking coherent but working from incomplete information.

Where it stops

Body signals are real information. They are not automatically the whole truth, and cognition is not automatically more accurate than they are.

Attachment research

Relational safety, proximity, separation, rupture, and repair — how expectations about others form and repeat.

Where it stops

Attachment patterns are not fixed identity labels, and a Gradient position is not an attachment style.

Trauma research

Adaptation to chronic threat: hypervigilance, defensive reorganisation, dissociation, and protection that persists past the conditions that built it.

Where it stops

TEG-Blue neither diagnoses nor treats trauma. Chronic organisation in the map is not a trauma finding.

Clinical and personality psychology

Rigidity, defensive organisation, relational impact, and the limits of repair — the research angles most relevant to the chronic side of the map.

Where it stops

These fields must never be used to diagnose a person through TEG-Blue. A Gradient position is not a disorder, and no position corresponds to one.

Developmental science

How capacity, expectation, regulation, and relational learning take shape early, and how an organisation that once served becomes the available default.

Where it stops

Avoid deterministic stories. Early conditions shape what became available; they do not specify an adult pattern.

Sociology, social psychology, anthropology

Belonging, status, group effects, norms, and power — the scale at which the same patterns appear between people rather than inside one.

Where it stops

This is a deeper scale than the current public doorway. It locates overlapping parts of the map; it does not own the architecture.

Contemplative traditions and attention research

Witnessing, self-observation, and direct experience — the practices that make one’s own state noticeable while it is happening.

Where it stops

These are named for what they are. They are not presented as laboratory science.

How Chronic Survival is learned

Chronic Survival is not simply an acute state that continued for a long time. It describes an organisation the body learned when protection was needed repeatedly and safety, support, or recovery were not reliably available.

Developmental science helps explain how early relationships shape expectation and regulation. Trauma and stress research describe adaptations to repeated threat, including hypervigilance, defensive mobilisation, dissociation, and shutdown. Learning and autonomic research help explain why responses used again and again can become easier to reach.

What the research makes visible

When watchfulness, appeasement, control, force, or shutdown repeatedly help a person get through what is happening, those responses can become more available than rest, open connection, or flexible choice. What gets practised becomes easier to use.

This research supports the mechanisms through which a pattern can be learned. It does not establish TEG-Blue’s seven Chronic Positions as a clinical taxonomy, identify a person’s history from their behaviour, or make an adult pattern inevitable.

Grounding, position by position

Research can support a mechanism without validating a whole Position. The comparison below keeps the evidence beside its limit, and separates a moving response from a chronic organisation.

X
Baseline
Fluid Gradient

Homeostatic and allostatic recovery, parasympathetic reactivation, sleep, metabolism, digestion, interoception, reward learning, agency, mastery, curiosity, and goal completion ground restorative and self-directed availability. Recovery is multisystem and has no single autonomic marker or fixed clock (McEwen; Roddick et al., 2025).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Elevated Baseline

Allostatic-load, impaired stress-recovery, sleep, autonomic-flexibility, and perseverative-cognition research ground cumulative multisystem dysregulation despite apparent rest. Allostatic load is a composite research construct with heterogeneous measures, not a synonym for this Position (Ottaviani et al., 2016; McCrory et al., 2023; Roddick et al., 2025).

A
Connection / Belonging
Fluid Gradient

Attachment, social safety, interpersonal emotion regulation, positive affect, exploratory attention, social perception, mentalizing, and empathy ground the reduced cost and wider information field possible with trusted others. Mentalizing, affect sharing, and concern remain separable capacities rather than one “social-engagement system” (Slavich, 2020; Reeck et al., 2016; Kanske et al., 2016).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Conditional Belonging

Attachment insecurity, social-evaluative threat, rejection sensitivity, ostracism, self-silencing, and interpersonal emotion-regulation research ground connection used to protect belonging. Hyperactivating and deactivating strategies are supported; a unitary biological “appeasement state” is not yet established (Williams, 2007; Malik et al., 2015).

A↔B
Safety Checking
Fluid Gradient

Research on orienting, uncertainty, anticipatory threat, prediction error, attention to change, and safety learning grounds checking before the situation is settled. The strength and direction of the response depend on expected threat, ambiguity, controllability, and prior learning (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Safety Checking

Uncertainty, deficient safety learning, threat expectancy, fear generalisation, and sustained attention to threat ground checking that does not resolve. PTSD eye-tracking evidence is stronger for difficulty disengaging from threat than for universally faster threat detection, so “hypervigilance” must remain component-specific (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013; Lazarov et al., 2019).

B
Protection / Defence
Fluid Gradient

Acute-stress research grounds rapid sympathetic and HPA recruitment, salience-led attention, altered pain access, and reduced working-memory and cognitive flexibility under immediate threat. Effects on inhibition, mentalizing, and empathy are contextual rather than uniformly absent (Arnsten et al., 2015; Shields et al., 2016; Nitschke & Bartz, 2023).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Protection / Defence

Chronic-stress, sensitisation, threat generalisation, impaired safety learning, and defensive-habit research ground protection recruited across situations that no longer differ clearly. Research must keep actual ongoing threat separate from a generalised read of safety as danger; diagnosis does not define the Position (fear-generalisation research, PMID 29282161; ongoing-threat review, PMID 34139653).

C
Strategic Management
Fluid Gradient

Research on sustained and anticipated threat, stress controllability, prospective control, perseverative cognition, and HPA duration grounds keeping selected variables active across time. “Strategic Management” is a TEG-Blue integration: evidence supports prediction and control processes, not a discrete biological state or inevitable interpersonal control (Herman et al., 2016; Ottaviani et al., 2016).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Control & Strategic Management

Perseverative cognition, anticipatory stress, controllability, executive control, and instrumental social-cognition research ground sustained prediction and outcome management. The claim that management “becomes the relationship” is TEG-Blue integration, not an established autonomic category; detailed mentalizing can remain intact while being used instrumentally (Ottaviani et al., 2016; Kanske et al., 2016; Tafet & Ortiz Alonso, 2025).

D
Power Mobilisation
Fluid Gradient

Human and comparative research on the defensive cascade, periaqueductal-gray networks, active defence, pain modulation, and extreme action urgency grounds maximum protective mobilisation. It does not establish violence, domination, loss of empathy, or one universal “rage circuit” from arousal alone (Linnman et al., 2012; Kozlowska et al., 2015; Nitschke & Bartz, 2023).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Dominance & Repression

Coercive-control, dominance, repeated aggression, restored-versus-restricted agency, accountability, and recurrence research ground patterned power and its impact. Current evidence describes behaviour, relational power, danger, and outcomes; it does not establish a unique autonomic profile, trauma re-enactment, or absent empathy as the cause (Dichter et al., 2018; Lohmann et al., 2024; Hilton & Radatz, 2025).

Z
Shutdown
Fluid Gradient

Research on attentive freezing, immobility under attack, tonic immobility, collapsed immobility, dissociation, and post-threat recovery grounds reduced movement or engagement when active response is unavailable or overwhelmed. These are distinguishable patterns with variable heart-rate and autonomic profiles, not one proven “dorsal-vagal shutdown” (Kozlowska et al., 2015; Volchan et al., 2017).

Chronic Survival · Chronic Collapse / Shutdown

Burnout, exhaustion, cognitive impairment, social withdrawal, dissociation, learned helplessness, immobility, depression, and autonomic-recovery research ground persistent low-output states. These constructs overlap but are not interchangeable, and chronic collapse is not established as one dorsal-vagal mechanism (Volchan et al., 2017; Parker et al., 2021; Tafet & Ortiz Alonso, 2025).

The research note is an orientation map of relevant domains and claim boundaries, not the final source trace. These capacities describe characteristic allocation under each condition, not an all-or-nothing switch or a required experience. A capacity may remain intact without being recruited, and a signal may organise action without entering reflective awareness. The research note is an orientation map of relevant domains and claim boundaries, not the final source trace. A capacity may remain highly active while becoming inaccurate, fused, compulsory or instrumental; reduced access is not the only form of chronic change.

What each position is read across

The same dimensions are read at every position. That is what makes the map comparable rather than a set of descriptions:

Autonomic stateSafety and threat readPerceptionCognitionConscious interoceptive accessEmotional awareness and differentiationSituational awarenessBody activationTime and tempoEmotionMentalizing (cognitive empathy)Affective empathy (experience sharing)Empathic concernBehaviourReturn availabilityCapacity for repairChronic organisation

The science for these dimensions exists in the fields above. What TEG-Blue adds is reading all of them at each position, so the relationships between them become visible as one map.

Limits

What research supports, and what it does not

Established research supports some parts of the map well and does not support others. Keeping both visible is part of the method, not a disclaimer added at the end.

Research grounding this map cannot:
  • Prove a person’s internal state, or their intent, from what is visible outside.
  • Guarantee that one position produces one specific behaviour.
  • Validate the seven Fluid and seven Chronic Positions as a complete or clinical taxonomy.
  • Replace clinical assessment, therapy, medical care, legal support, or crisis support.
  • Turn an explanation of a mechanism into a justification for its impact.

That last one matters most. The Gradient explains how an organism is organising itself under the conditions it is reading. It does not explain away what that organisation does to other people. Responsibility rises with awareness, repetition, power, available choice, refusal to repair, and impact.

About TEG-Blue and its authorship →
Chronic Survival

Why responses persist or recur

The Chronic Survival view asks what sustains a pattern of response and how readily it can change. Persistence can reflect a continuing demand, prior learning, constraints on action or interrupted recovery.

Repeated threat or unpredictable care can shape what a person expects and which responses become familiar. But the danger may also still be present. Understanding a pattern means examining both the current conditions and how the response changes across situations and time.

Conditions that can contribute
  • Continuing danger, deprivation, illness or coercion.
  • Unsafe or unpredictable conditions during development.
  • Repeated threat, neglect, coercion, instability, loss, or overwhelm.
  • Prolonged stress with too little rest, safety, support, or recovery.

Duration alone does not show that a response is inflexible. Ask what demand remains, what information or action is available, and whether the response changes when conditions change. Different capacities may change at different rates.

Someone may appear calm while responses remain difficult to revise or recovery remains incomplete. Understanding how a pattern formed does not erase its effects: impact, responsibility, repair and whether the pattern changes still matter.

Relevant research and limits

Developmental, learning and stress research inform questions about expectations, recurring responses and recovery. These fields support component processes; they do not establish the seven Chronic Positions as a clinical taxonomy or reveal a person’s history from their behaviour. See what each domain supports →