Seven Proposed ROOTS
Trust, Safety, Security, Connection, Importance, Acceptance, and Protection provide a shared language for identifying what may be carrying weight beneath a response.
Research & Development
Evidence-Informed. Clearly Defined. Still Being Tested.
Relational ROOTS™ is a developing response-centered framework for relational self-awareness. It is informed by established psychological, relational, and spiritual research while maintaining clear boundaries around what has and has not yet been empirically established.
Conceptual Framework
Under Active Development
Not Yet Formally Validated
Research Foundation
Connected to Established Research Without Becoming a Renamed Theory.
Trust, Safety, Security, Connection, Importance, Acceptance, Protection, relational meaning, and protective behavior are not new human experiences.
Relational ROOTS™ develops its framework in conversation with established work in areas including attachment, cognitive appraisal, coping, emotion regulation, family systems, relational functioning, self-determination, and the psychology of religion.
These bodies of research help provide context for why relational experiences, meanings, expectations, and responses can carry significant weight. Relational ROOTS™ does not claim that those theories are its own, nor does it present itself as a replacement for them.
What Relational ROOTS™ Adds
A Distinct Way of Organizing Relational Self-Awareness.
Relational ROOTS™ does not define the seven ROOTS as universal human needs. Its contribution is how relational experiences are defined, organized, and explored through a response-centered self-awareness framework.
Three Relational Domains
The same seven ROOTS are explored across relationship with Self, Others, and God, recognizing that the same relational question may be experienced differently in each domain.
Response-Centered Focus
The framework keeps attention on what a person can examine and influence: their lived experience, relational meaning, protective response, and opportunity for intentional growth.
Current Development Status
Development Is Being Documented Before Stronger Claims Are Made.
Conceptual Clarity
Continued work is sharpening the definitions and boundaries of the seven proposed ROOTS, including areas where related constructs may overlap.
Professional Review
Future review is intended to include qualified psychological, relational, theological, and assessment professionals who can examine the framework and its assessment content.
Participant Understanding
Development includes examining how participants understand assessment questions, results, scores, and the language used to describe their relational experience.
Assessment Testing
Formal testing is needed to examine consistency, construct structure, comparison with established measures, and how the assessment performs across different populations.
Ethical Application
Privacy, informed use, referral boundaries, cultural humility, and language that avoids diagnosis or misplaced blame remain part of the framework's continued development.
Research Boundaries
Transparency Matters.
Relational ROOTS™ is currently an evidence-informed conceptual and psychoeducational framework under active development. Its assessments have not yet completed formal testing sufficient to establish the seven ROOTS as empirically validated dimensions.
Current assessment results are intended as descriptive prompts for reflection and are not diagnoses, causal explanations, fixed identities, clinical findings, or tools for high-stakes decisions.
Foundational Publication
Relational ROOTS™ Foundational White Paper — Version 1.1
A Response-Centered Framework for Relational Self-Awareness Across Self, Others, and God
Version 1.1 documents the current public conceptual form of Relational ROOTS™. It refines the description of the seven ROOTS, clarifies Self, Others, and God as relational domains in which the ROOTS are explored, and distinguishes the public framework from proprietary assessment implementation.
The paper establishes a citable record of the framework's development, authorship, research boundaries, and continued direction while leaving room for professional review, empirical testing, and future refinement.
Version history: Version 1.0 established the initial public record of the framework. Version 1.1 refines the public description of the seven ROOTS, clarifies the Self, Others, and God domains, and establishes a clearer boundary between the public conceptual framework and proprietary assessment implementation.
Relational Self-Awareness
Research Informs the Framework. Reflection Puts It Into Practice.
Explore the seven Relational ROOTS™ through a guided self-awareness assessment.
Explore Assessments