For practitioners — clinical reference
Reading an Evaligned report
A practical reference for the assessment report your client shares with you. Score ranges, flag meanings, when ambiguity is itself the diagnostic signal, when low scores warrant clinical follow-up, and where self-report instruments hit their limits.
1 · Score ranges
The six dimensions on a 0–100 scale
Each dimension is scored 0–100 from the underlying scale items (Likert responses normalised, reverse-scored items applied, then averaged within dimension and rescaled). The scale is interpretable but not norm-referenced against a clinical population — it reads the individual against themselves and against the measurement architecture, not against a published cut-off.
What the scale is not.0–100 here is a within-individual instrument, not a population percentile. A Mental Clarity score of 60 does not mean “in the 60th percentile of clarity.” It means “the client rated themselves above the midpoint of the dimension scale.” Treat comparisons across people with caution; comparisons across time within the same person carry the diagnostic weight.
2 · Cluster scores
Three clusters carry more diagnostic weight than any single dimension
The six dimensions group into three clusters. Cluster collapse is often the most clinically significant signal — particularly Foundation collapse, which predicts that work in any other cluster will fail to consolidate.
Foundation
Energy & Health + Emotional Balance
The biological and regulatory base. When Foundation is <50, growth work in the other clusters typically fails to stick. A client whose Foundation has collapsed often needs medical, somatic, or trauma-informed support before insight-based work has traction.
Connective
Mental Clarity + Relationships
The bridge between inner and outer. Connective collapse often signals cognitive overload, executive dysfunction, or relational depletion — even when Foundation appears intact. Worth ruling out ADHD, sleep disorders, acute social isolation.
Expression
Purpose & Direction + Inner Life & Meaning
Forward momentum and depth. Expression collapse despiteintact Foundation and Connective is the most clinically interesting signal — points to identity-level work, values misalignment, existential distress, or grief the client hasn’t named.
Reading order: always check Foundation first. If Foundation is fragile, no Expression-level intervention will hold. The Evaligned cascade model follows the same logic — recommendations route through stabilisation before meaning work, regardless of which dimension feels most pressing to the client.
3 · Cascade signatures
How the dimensions are interacting, not just where they sit
The assessment detects six common cascade patterns from the dimension profile and the contradiction signals in the open-text responses. Each cascade has a typical entry point (the dimension that drops first) and a typical sequence (which dimensions follow). Reading the cascade tells you where to intervene to prevent further drift.
- Adrenal burn. Energy collapses → Clarity erodes → Purpose blurs. Common in late-stage burnout. Intervention point is upstream — restore the physical foundation before purpose work.
- Identity bypass. Purpose runs high but Foundation is collapsing. The client is sustained by what they believe they should be doing while their body and emotional regulation are failing. Common in Hollow Performer and Exhausted Achiever archetypes.
- Relational drain. Relationships dimension drops while Emotional Balance also drops. Often points to a specific relationship consuming regulatory capacity, or to caregiver fatigue.
- Expression over Foundation.Purpose and Inner Life are the only strong scores; everything below is in strain. Often the “I have a clear vision but I’m falling apart” presentation.
- Withdrawal pattern. Relationships score collapses ahead of everything else. Watch for social isolation as a precursor to Foundation deterioration.
- Quiet erosion. No single dimension stands out, but everything sits in the LOW band with low spread. Often associated with the Quietly Unravelling archetype — typical when a client is functioning enough to not seek help, while everything is gradually dimming.
4 · Pattern archetype
Probabilistic, not categorical
The report names a primary, secondary, and tertiary archetype with a fit percentage for each. The fit percentage is a composite of dimension-profile match, threshold priors, contradiction signal evidence, cascade signature evidence, open-text keyword signals, and contextual factor modulators — not a single probability density.
Reading the fit values
- Primary fit ≥ 70 with secondary gap ≥ 20. High-confidence read. The pattern is dominant. Treat the named archetype as a working hypothesis, not a diagnosis.
- Primary fit 50–70, gap to secondary < 15. The system flags this as ambiguous and surfaces both archetypes prominently. Often clinically meaningful — the client may be transitioning between patterns, or holding two patterns simultaneously (e.g. Exhausted Achiever giving way to Recovery Arc).
- Primary fit < 50.No dominant pattern. Don’t over-read — the dimension profile may not match any of the 16 archetypes cleanly. Lean more heavily on dimension scores and cluster reading than on archetype label.
Hard-floor disqualifications
Four archetypes have non-negotiable signature requirements. They cannot be named as the primary unless the signature is met:
- Grief Spiral requires Emotional Balance < 45.
- Relational Isolation requires Relationships < 45.
- Quietly Unravelling requires low spread (< 22) with all dimensions in the 44–68 range.
- Recovery Arc requires at least 3 weak dimensions paired with at least 1 strong dimension.
These hard floors prevent a noisy mid-range profile from being mis-labelled “Grief Spiral” when no emotional collapse is present. If you see one of these archetypes named as primary, the underlying profile is genuinely showing the signature.
5 · Central tension
The standing “you want X but fear Y” line
For Premium members, the system synthesises a single sentence describing the client’s central tension from their own writing — journals, weekly check-ins, should narratives, hidden patterns, value conflicts, and stated values. The line is generated monthly via a single AI call against background-tier model output and evolves over time as the client’s patterns shift.
Confidence-graded: high / moderate / low. On low confidence the line is framed as a hypothesis rather than a statement. The client validates each new tension via a yes / partly / no prompt; rejected framings feed forward as corrections to the next generation.
Clinically:when shared with you, this is often the most actionable single piece of the brief. It surfaces an avoidance pattern or values conflict the client may not have named themselves. It is not a clinical formulation — it is one valid reading drawn from the client’s words. Treat it as a starting hypothesis you can test in session, not as something to confirm or dismiss in the abstract.
6 · When low scores warrant clinical follow-up
Patterns that should prompt clinical screening
Evaligned scores are not diagnostic instruments. The following patterns are not clinical conclusions, but they are patterns clinical training would prompt you to screen further:
- Emotional Balance < 35 — consider screening for major depressive episode, complicated grief, or trauma sequelae using validated clinical instruments (PHQ-9, PCL-5, ICG-19).
- Energy & Health < 35 with adequate Emotional Balance — consider screening for thyroid disorder, sleep disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, or other physiological causes. Suggest GP review.
- Mental Clarity < 35 with adequate Foundation — consider ADHD screening, executive dysfunction, or anxiety disorder presenting as cognitive overload.
- Relationships & Support < 30 — screen for social isolation as risk factor (Holt-Lunstad meta-analysis: comparable mortality impact to smoking 15 cigarettes/day).
- Inner Life & Meaning < 30 with declining trajectory— consider existential distress, anhedonia, or depression’s anhedonic presentation. Sometimes the only signal a high-functioning client gives.
- All cluster scores < 50 with low spread — Quietly Unravelling presentation. Often missed in standard screening because no single area presents as crisis. Worth a comprehensive intake.
If a client’s Evaligned report contains any reference to suicidal ideation, self-harm, or harm to others — including any indication that the client’s AI Coach conversations triggered Tier 3 safety routing — treat as clinically urgent. The Evaligned safety system surfaces these in the report when consent permits, specifically so practitioners can act on them.
7 · Limits
Where the instrument hits its limits
An honest read of the report respects what the underlying scales can and cannot do.
- Self-report bias.Acquiescence, social desirability, and state-mood contamination are detected (reverse-scored items, response-style analysis, temporal “past two weeks” framing) but not eliminated. A client in an unusually good or bad mood that day may shift scores ±5–10 points.
- Ceiling and floor effects. A client at the very top or bottom of a dimension may stop being differentiated by the scale. Watch for repeated check-ins parked at 90+ or below 20 across many weeks — the instrument may be under-resolving meaningful change.
- Cultural and linguistic norms.The scales were normed primarily on Western, English-speaking adult populations. Inner Life & Meaning items in particular may read differently for clients from non-individualist cultural frameworks.
- No clinical cut-offs. The 0–100 scale does not map directly to DSM-5 or ICD-11 criteria. Use clinical instruments alongside (PHQ-9 for depression, GAD-7 for anxiety, PCL-5 for PTSD, etc.) when clinical-grade screening is needed.
- Not norm-referenced.A score of 50 is not “average for this population.” It is “midpoint on the dimension scale.” Comparisons within the same person across time are far more reliable than comparisons across people.
- Reliable Change Index gating.When the system claims a meaningful change has occurred, it has tested that change against the RCI (Jacobson & Truax, 1991) using personal SD after six check-ins. Changes inside the noise band are explicitly labelled as such. Trust the system’s noise-vs-signal judgement.
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