The directory

Twenty-four ways a child learns to survive. One of them is yours.

Every Programme Type is two things at once: the wound it grew from, and the mask it built to cope. Six masks, four wounds. Find yours on the map.

The map

Six masks. Four wounds.

Mask ↓ / Wound →
SafetyThe ground never felt steady.
ConnectionLove felt like something to earn.
SelfWho you were had to fit the room.
AlivenessThe spark felt unsafe.
CaretakerEarns belonging by being needed.
The Peacekeeper
The Lifeline
The Giver
The Martyr
Good OneStays safe by being agreeable and correct.
The Careful One
The Pleaser
The Rule Keeper
The Dutiful

How to read it

Read it like a grid.

Down the side, the six masks: the strategy you built to get through. Across the top, the four wounds: what your childhood was short on. Where your mask meets your wound is your type. The map shows the logic. The assessment finds your exact place on it.

All 24

Every type, at a glance.

Safety · Achiever

The Fortress

If you build it strong enough, nothing can get in.

Connection · Achiever

The Earner

Love was a wage, and you have been working for it ever since.

Self · Achiever

The Breakaway

You drove hard to get out, and you have never stopped running.

Aliveness · Achiever

The Engine

You keep moving because stopping makes the deadness audible.

Safety · Caretaker

The Peacekeeper

You manage the room so the storm never lands on you.

Connection · Caretaker

The Lifeline

You make yourself indispensable so no one can leave.

Self · Caretaker

The Giver

You disappear into other people's needs and call it love.

Aliveness · Caretaker

The Martyr

You carry what no one asked you to, and resent it in silence.

Safety · Good One

The Careful One

You walk lightly so nothing reacts to you.

Connection · Good One

The Pleaser

You traded yourself for approval, and now no one quite knows you.

Self · Good One

The Rule Keeper

You control yourself first, so no one else has to.

Aliveness · Good One

The Dutiful

You do what is required, and feel whatever is left over.

Safety · Self-Reliant

The Lone Guard

You trust only yourself, and you watch every exit.

Connection · Self-Reliant

The Island

You need no one, on purpose, and it aches under the rule.

Self · Self-Reliant

The Untouchable

You cannot be reached, and you wear it as freedom.

Aliveness · Self-Reliant

The Stoic

You feel nothing on the surface, and the depth is locked.

Safety · Performer

The Defuser

You read the tension and break it before it breaks you.

Connection · Performer

The Charmer

You become loved on contact, and only you know it is a performance.

Self · Performer

The Chameleon

You become whoever is needed and lose the thread of who you are.

Aliveness · Performer

The Entertainer

You keep the lights on for everyone, and sit in the dark alone.

Safety · Withdrawer

The Ghost

You disappear in plain sight, present and untraceable.

Connection · Withdrawer

The Self-Exile

You leave before you can be left.

Self · Withdrawer

The Recluse

You live behind a door, and the door is the relationship.

Aliveness · Withdrawer

The Sleepwalker

You move through life half-here, waiting for it to start.

The edge case

And then there's The Settled One.

The Settled One

No single wound took hold. The ground was steady enough.

No root dominated. The home, whatever its faults, gave you enough steadiness that you never had to build a survival self around a wound.

You meet life roughly as it comes. You can be close without managing it, achieve without needing it, and rest without guilt. You have habits like anyone, but none of them runs you.

Not everyone is wounded, and a system honest enough to say so is one worth trusting. This is the lighter imprint, and it is still worth seeing, because knowing what steady felt like tells you what you are building toward.

Soon

When two types collide.

Coming soon: how any two types collide. The Lifeline meets the Untouchable. Look up your partner, your parent, your boss.

Lineage and note

Where this comes from.

Programme Type draws on established ideas, attachment theory, schema therapy, internal family systems, and how the nervous system carries early experience, and combines them into one structure: the wound you grew from, crossed with the mask you built. The framework, the 24 types and their names are our own. This is a tool for self-understanding, not a diagnosis or a substitute for therapy. If you are struggling, please speak to a qualified professional or your GP.

Begin

You can guess your type from the map. Take the assessment to actually know.

The assessment derives your type from your answers in about five minutes. Free.

Find your Programme Type →