Hello Emma,
Overall result
Moderate adverse experiencesYou lived through moderate adverse experiences during childhood. Some aspects of your development were affected, but you have built up mechanisms of resilience.
Your profile at a glance
Detailed analysis
This tendency is present in you — here is what it sheds light on.
You were exposed to certain forms of abuse during your childhood. These experiences may have left emotional traces.
Your answers point to signs that are present but contained around abuse. The moderate level typically reflects an activation that flares at times, often tied to identifiable triggers (stressful situations, relational conflicts, periods of fatigue or isolation). At this stage the dimension is not dominant in how you function, but it deserves watching: the main risk with a moderate level is that it worsens through accumulation. Concretely, tracking the frequency rather than the intensity of an isolated episode gives a truer picture of how things are evolving: it is repetition, more than the strength of any single moment, that tips a moderate level toward a marked one. Keeping a regular point of reference (a brief journal, a conversation with a trusted friend) can help you anticipate. Identifying two or three recurring triggers and preparing a simple response in advance — a pause, a phone call, an activity that soothes you — lowers the chance of the dimension settling in. If other dimensions evolve in parallel, this one can become more salient through a cumulative effect; and if these signs gain ground despite your efforts, raising it early with a professional is in no way an overreaction — it is often at this stage that support is most effective and the shortest.
Recommendations
- ✓Identify the present-day situations that may reactivate these memories
- ✓Practise emotional regulation techniques
- ✓Consider therapeutic support to work through these experiences
This tendency is clear in you — here is what it reveals, to understand and move forward.
You experienced significant neglect. The lack of care, attention and safety left deep marks on your self-esteem and your relationships.
Your answers describe a marked trait around neglect. At this level, the dimension can sustain itself through self-reinforcing mechanisms (avoidance, narrowed attention, or rumination), whose exact form depends on the dimension in question. This trait typically shows up in several everyday contexts, not only in exceptional situations. Understanding the self-reinforcing mechanism is often the key: for example, avoiding a situation brings short-term relief but confirms to the brain that it was dangerous, which strengthens the avoidance next time. Spotting this kind of loop in your own daily life — without judging yourself — is already a lever for change, because you can only act on what you have first identified. It may interact with other elevated dimensions in your profile — for instance by worsening the sense of overload or by limiting the resources available to cope. It can be useful to talk it through with a professional (psychologist, doctor) to explore in more detail what is at play and to identify levers for action; structured approaches such as cognitive and behavioural therapies work precisely on these sequences, through small, concrete and realistic steps rather than willpower alone.
Recommendations
- ✓Consider therapeutic work on attachment
- ✓Learn to identify and express your needs
- ✓Work on the belief that you deserve to be cared for
- ✓Explore reparenting-focused therapies
This tendency is present in you — here is what it sheds light on.
Your family experienced moderate dysfunction. Certain events or behaviours created an instability that may have affected you.
Your answers describe moderate family dysfunction during childhood: certain events or behaviours created an instability that may have affected you. Without judgment or diagnosis, the ACE questionnaire (adverse childhood experiences) flags this kind of environment because research has shown its lasting influence on health and well-being. One way of reading it, to weigh against your own experience, is that this dysfunction, even 'moderate', may have shaped ways of protecting yourself (vigilance, control, withdrawal) that made sense in the context of the time. The moderate score points to an imprint that is present but partial, and above all, childhood is not destiny: the trajectory remains largely changeable. The most fruitful lever is to connect, without getting trapped in it, certain current patterns to this history (to understand them rather than judge yourself), and to cultivate the protective factors (safe relationships, meaning, support) that lastingly counterbalance the impact of early experiences.
Recommendations
- ✓Identify the family patterns you might be repeating
- ✓Work on building your own healthy family model
- ✓Explore the systemic approach to understand family dynamics
This tendency is clear in you — here is what it reveals, to understand and move forward.
Childhood trauma significantly affects your present life. Your health, your relationships and your emotional well-being are strongly affected.
Your answers indicate that childhood trauma significantly affects your present life: health, relationships and emotional well-being are notably affected. Without judgment or diagnosis, this is precisely what the ACE approach measures — not to confine you to the past, but because recognising this link opens the way to suitable support. One way of reading it, to weigh against your own experience, is that today's reactions or difficulties (hypervigilance, relational difficulties, physical or emotional symptoms) may be echoes of early experiences, not personal flaws. The high score deserves to be taken seriously. The essential point carries hope: the impact of childhood trauma can be treated. Trauma-focused approaches (EMDR, psychotrauma therapies, schema therapy) have proven their worth. A high score here is a legitimate invitation to open up about it to a professional — it is a step toward relief, not a verdict.
Recommendations
- ✓Regular therapeutic support is strongly recommended
- ✓Explore trauma therapies (EMDR, SE, IFS)
- ✓Take care of your physical health alongside this
- ✓Build a solid support network
Profile synthesis
Your profile shows moderate signs. Some dimensions deserve attention without being alarming: they describe real but contained difficulties that do not yet sit at the centre of how you function. The moderate level is precisely the one where observation is most useful, because it can evolve in either direction depending on what is happening in your life. Spotting the contexts and the moments when these dimensions intensify — fatigue, conflict, overload, isolation — gives you concrete levers to act early. Talking about it with someone you trust or with a professional, even without urgency, can help clarify what is at play and prevent a worsening through accumulation.
How your dimensions interact
Several dimensions show high scores at the same time (Neglect, Current Impact). These dimensions do not operate in isolation: they can reinforce one another, each sustaining the others in a loop that makes the overall picture heavier than the sum of its parts. The good news about this mechanism is that it also works the other way: targeted work on one of them, often the most accessible or the most overwhelming, can have positive knock-on effects on the others. It is precisely these links that a professional can help untangle, so you can choose where to start rather than facing everything at once.
Your action plan
Right now
- →Neglect — Consider therapeutic work on attachment
- →Neglect — Learn to identify and express your needs
- →Current Impact — Regular therapeutic support is strongly recommended
- →Current Impact — Explore trauma therapies (EMDR, SE, IFS)
In the coming weeks
- →Abuse — Identify the present-day situations that may reactivate these memories
- →Family Dysfunction — Identify the family patterns you might be repeating
In the long run
- →Retake this test in 3 to 6 months to measure your progress. Significant changes on the high dimensions are often visible over this time frame.
- →If you begin therapeutic work, identify together 1 to 2 priority dimensions rather than addressing everything at once — targeted work is more effective than working on all fronts.
- →Build a lasting support network: a health professional (psychologist, psychiatrist, GP), people around you, possibly a support group. Strength comes from numbers and from complementarity.
- →Take care of the physiological basics (sleep, nutrition, physical activity): they do not cure but they strongly condition the psychological availability needed for therapeutic work.
Avenues to explore
These are hypotheses, not conclusions. You are the one who knows whether they resonate.
It may be that the emotional or material neglect experienced in childhood (high score at 60%) continues to shape your relationship to your own current needs. In some people who have lived through neglect, we see a difficulty recognising or expressing their own needs, or conversely a hypervigilance toward shortfalls.
Check for yourself: Over a week, observe how you react to your basic needs (sleep, food, rest) and emotional ones (asking for help, expressing an emotion). Note whether you tend to minimise them, to feel "not entitled" to express them, or whether you constantly anticipate future shortfalls.
A possible explanation is that the high current impact (60%) reflects how the adverse experiences of your childhood keep "colouring" certain areas of your present life: relationships, self-confidence, stress management, or self-esteem. It is not a global deficit, but rather specific contexts that reactivate these echoes.
Check for yourself: Identify 2-3 present-day situations where you feel particularly vulnerable, anxious or withdrawn. Ask yourself: is there a common thread between these moments and childhood experiences? For example, does a criticism take you back to abuse you lived through?
It may be that the three dimensions (abuse, neglect, family dysfunction) created a "cocktail" in which you had to learn to cope alone, to anticipate problems, or to make yourself "invisible". These childhood strategies can persist today, even when they no longer serve you.
Check for yourself: Observe your relational reflexes: do you tend to anticipate others' needs before your own? To isolate yourself when things go wrong? To constantly check that everything is "fine" around you? Are these reflexes present even in safe environments?
One possibility is that, despite a moderate profile on abuse and family dysfunction (40%), neglect specifically (60%) left deeper imprints. In some people, "absence" is more striking than "the presence of something painful", because it creates a diffuse emptiness rather than an identified wound.
Check for yourself: Compare mentally: what affects you most today — the memory of a direct confrontation, or rather the sense of "not having received what I needed"? The first is often easier to name than the second.
16 clinical reading frameworks are applied to your profile below — the exact number announced for this test.
Reading frameworks
Recognised clinical frameworks applied to your profile, as additional perspectives to weigh.
Attachment style — anxious-avoidant (mixed)
A history of high neglect (60%) during childhood can hinder the formation of secure trust toward attachment figures. This experience suggests a possible alternation between seeking closeness and defending through distance, characteristic of a disorganised or mixed anxious-avoidant attachment.
Nervous system state — sympathetic-dorsal (intermittent hypervigilance or freeze)
A high current impact (60%) suggests that the nervous system stays partly in adaptive alert (sympathetic) in the face of the trauma's aftermath, or can tip into dorsal (shutdown, dissociation) during emotional activation. Autonomic regulation may have been hindered by the absence of the early safety needed to anchor the ventral state (calm and connection).
Cognitive pattern — Catastrophising
A high current impact (60%) combined with historical neglect can foster a tendency to magnify threats and anticipate the worst in relationships or situations of dependence. This distortion could be a protective response to an early unpredictable environment.
Cognitive pattern — Overgeneralisation
Prolonged neglect can feed a generalised belief that 'others won't be reliable' or that 'I don't deserve help'. This extrapolation from early experiences deserves to be explored and tested against the present.
Early schema — Abandonment / Instability
A high neglect score (60%) and moderate family dysfunction (40%) are consistent with an abandonment schema, where the person dreads loss or rejection. This schema can show up in current relationships through excessive vigilance or a tendency toward pre-emptive self-isolation.
Early schema — Defectiveness / Shame
Neglect during childhood can be internalised as an implicit message: 'you are not worthy of care'. This schema can generate an underlying belief of unworthiness that influences self-esteem and present-day relational choices.
Attachment — Sources: John Bowlby (1969) ; Mary Ainsworth et al. (1978) ; Kim Bartholomew, Leonard Horowitz (1991)
Cognitive distortions — Sources: Aaron Beck (1976) ; David Burns (1980)
Young's schemas — Sources: Jeffrey Young (1990) ; Jeffrey Young, Janet Klosko, Marjorie Weishaar (2003)
Polyvagal theory — Sources: Stephen Porges (2011) ; Stephen Porges (1995) — proposed/debated theory
Additional clinical frameworks
Recognised models for this domain, applied to your profile as hypotheses to weigh — not a diagnosis.
Models of childhood and family
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)
Your overall ACE score of 50% and above all the marked elevation of neglect (60%) and current impact (60%) suggest an accumulation of moderate-to-high adverse experiences during childhood. This constellation — particularly the absence or insufficiency of care, attention or supervision — can have lasting repercussions on physical and mental health in adulthood, following a dose-response relationship. Have you noticed links between these early shortfalls and certain difficulties or vulnerabilities you encounter today?
Sources: Vincent Felitti, Robert Anda, Dale Nordenberg, et al. (1998)
Bowen Family Systems
The presence of moderate family dysfunction (40%) coupled with high neglect may reflect a family where emotional space was not clearly differentiated or where individual needs stayed barely visible. It may be that you had to learn very early to navigate alone or to make few requests, which could affect your present-day ability to express your own limits or relational needs. Do you recognise this pattern of low differentiation, or a tendency toward emotional cutoff, in your current bonds?
Sources: Murray Bowen (1978)
Contextual Therapy (Böszörményi-Nagy)
The family dysfunction (40%) suggests a possible disruption of relational fairness and invisible loyalties in your family of origin. You may have inherited unnamed emotional debts or carried roles (the overlooked child, the early caretaker) that shaped your place in the family system. These implicit loyalties can still influence how you enter into relationships or position yourself toward others. Are there silent obligations or unspoken roles whose weight you still feel?
Sources: Iván Böszörményi-Nagy, Geraldine Spark (1973)
Inner Child / IFS (Schwartz)
The high current impact (60%) combined with early neglect (60%) evokes one or more parts of yourself — possibly "exiles" carrying wounds of absence, invisibility or insufficiency — that remain active and influence your present reactions. These parts may be protected by other structures (hypervigilant protectors, firefighters seeking control or self-soothing) in order to keep you from relapsing into that vulnerability. Have you noticed repeated patterns of reaction or behaviour that might be tied to an attempt to "manage" this childhood suffering?
Sources: Richard Schwartz (1995)
Cross-cutting frameworks
Window of Tolerance (Siegel)
Your high current impact score (60%) suggests that adverse childhood experiences may have affected your ability to maintain a stable "window of tolerance" — that zone of activation where you feel neither overwhelmed nor numb. It may be that you swing between moments of hyperarousal (vigilance, reactivity) and phases of hypoarousal (numbness, disconnection), particularly when faced with stress that recalls contexts of neglect or family dysfunction. Do you observe these fluctuations in your daily life?
Defence Mechanisms (Vaillant)
In the face of early adversity (especially neglect at 60%), you probably developed defence mechanisms to survive emotionally — perhaps denial, emotional isolation or a minimising of your needs. This profile sometimes evokes the activation of more immature or neurotic defences rather than mature ones: it may be that trust toward others and self-support remain fragile. Recognising these old coping strategies can help cultivate more flexible ones today.
Negative Cognitive Triad (Beck)
A history of neglect (60%) and family dysfunction tends to root automatic negative thoughts: a view of oneself as "unworthy of attention", of the world as "unreliable" or of the future as "uncertain". These patterns often formed very early and now operate in the background. It may be that you struggle with persistent self-criticism or a sense that "good things don't last". Examining these automatic thoughts with kindness can open spaces for change.
Self-compassion (Neff)
A neglect score of 60% suggests that self-support and kindness toward yourself may not have been modelled or reinforced in childhood. You probably tend either to ignore yourself (repeating the neglect) or to criticise yourself (internalising the lack of attention received). This profile invites you to cultivate self-compassion deliberately — to recognise your suffering as something shared, to welcome yourself with the same tenderness you would give someone else. Is this something that takes effort for you?
Response Styles / Rumination (Nolen-Hoeksema)
The high current impact (60%) can come with a tendency to ruminate — to revisit moments of neglect, to search for "what could have been different". Rumination keeps emotional activation going without resolving it. It may be that you find it hard to "let go" of certain experiences or to shift toward strategies of constructive distraction and active problem-solving. Identifying when you ruminate and intentionally cultivating actions aligned with your values can interrupt this cycle.
Psychological Flexibility (ACT, Hayes)
This moderate-to-high ACE profile invites you to explore your psychological flexibility: do you sometimes step back from negative thoughts (defusion) or accept difficult emotions without fully identifying with them? Or, on the contrary, do you tend to fight or avoid them? It may be that you discover, through mindfulness and acceptance, spaces of freedom to act in line with your values even in the presence of this historical distress.
These frameworks do not constitute a medical diagnosis.
Resources & exercise
7-day observation journal
Each day, spot one situation where “Neglect” showed up. Note the automatic thought, the emotion (0–100) and what you did. Then write one more balanced, alternative reading. After 7 days, re-read your notes: the recurring patterns become visible — the first step to change them.
Support resources
If you are struggling, you are not alone. United States: call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7). Elsewhere: find your local line at findahelpline.com. This report supports self-knowledge and does not replace a consultation with a psychologist or doctor.
Your answers in detail
1. An adult around me often insulted, humiliated or verbally put me down.
Answer : Somewhat disagree
You answered "Somewhat disagree". Can you tell me a little more about when this comes up?
It surfaces mostly in situations that matter to me, when I feel under pressure or emotionally involved.
2. I was afraid of being physically hurt by an adult in my family.
Answer : Somewhat disagree
And how long have you been noticing this?
It's been more present for a few months, even though I recognise it from before too.
3. I was hit, slapped or pushed by an adult on a regular basis.
Answer : Somewhat disagree
4. The punishments I received were often disproportionate or violent.
Answer : Somewhat disagree
5. I was made to feel that I was stupid, worthless or good for nothing.
Answer : Somewhat disagree
6. I was threatened with violence or abandonment to make me obey.
Answer : Somewhat disagree
7. …
The next questions (7, 8…) continue in your test. This sample only shows the beginning — the full test has 60 questions, and every answer refines your report.
What now?
You've just seen what your answers reveal. Your Full Assessment goes further: a personalized, step-by-step path to turn this understanding into concrete change — at your own pace.
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