The heart of it
Life patterns.
Pattern Analysis is inspired by established psychological pattern work, including Dr Jeffrey Young's schema-focused approach. It uses those roots for structured self-reflection, not clinical treatment. Pattern Analysis is not therapy and does not diagnose you. Young described 18 deep life patterns: ways of thinking, feeling and reacting that often form early and quietly repeat in adult life. We describe all 18 in plain, everyday words, and every part of the journey feeds into them.
Part 1. The mind test
How you think.
Before anything personal, we look at how your mind works. How you think shapes how you get stuck: someone who always trusts the first answer and someone who overthinks everything can live the same pattern in very different ways.
- Pattern and logic puzzles: letter and number series, reasoning and word meaning show how you spot structure and follow a line of thought.
- Trick questions in the tradition of the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005) show whether you catch the quick but wrong first answer.
- An ideas task based on the alternative uses approach to creative thinking (Guilford) shows how freely ideas flow.
- Memory and speed tasks show how much you can hold in mind at once.
- Thinking style questions draw on research into logical and intuitive thinking (Epstein and colleagues).
- A final step compares how you expected to do with how you actually did: a window into self-awareness.
Part 2. Your story
Where things began.
Seven chapters, from where you come from to what you want now, in the life-story tradition of personality psychology. Patterns rarely appear out of nowhere. Your story is where we look for where they began.
Part 3. Your personality
The finer facets.
Based on the Big Five model, the most widely researched framework of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability. We look at all 15 finer facets, as in modern research (Soto and John), plus honesty and humility from the HEXACO model (Ashton and Lee). The real insight often sits in the splits, for example being very organised but finding it hard to get started.
Part 4. Your emotional system
Closest to the patterns.
How you attach, cope and handle feelings is often where a pattern shows itself most clearly. This part draws on three well-established areas.
- Attachment: how you tend to connect and keep distance in close relationships, based on attachment theory (Bowlby) and the four attachment styles described by Bartholomew and Horowitz.
- Coping: which of 14 common coping strategies you reach for under stress, based on coping research (Carver; Lazarus and Folkman).
- Emotion regulation: whether you tend to rethink a situation or hold feelings in, based on the work of Gross and John.
Part 5. Your strengths
What to build on.
Based on the 24 character strengths described by Peterson and Seligman in positive psychology, plus questions about flow (Csikszentmihalyi) and the moments you feel most alive. Patterns are not only problems. Every pattern has a side that served you, and your strengths show what to build on.
Part 6. Bringing it together
Only what repeats.
This is where the parts connect. A pattern only enters your analysis if it shows up in at least two different parts of the journey, for example in your story and in your emotional system. The more places it shows up, the more clearly it stands out. Before anything is final, you see the patterns as suggestions and can correct them, because you know your life best. Only then is your report written: each pattern with where it may come from, what it gives you, what it costs you, and a direction.
How it all connects
One picture.
Your mind test shows how you think. Your story shows where things began. Your personality, emotional system and strengths show how patterns play out today. The synthesis connects them into the patterns that keep repeating, and what you can do with them.