Your Regulatory Identity
Every nervous system has its own way of meeting change: how quickly it reacts, what it notices, how it reads those signals, and how it finds its way back to baseline. This questionnaire helps you sketch yours.
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There are no right or wrong answers, and no score is better than another. Answer for how you have been over the past month, not how you would like to be.
This is a reflection tool for education and self-awareness. It is not a diagnostic test, and it has not been clinically validated. Questionnaires capture how we see ourselves, which is only part of the picture: the body often tells its own story.
How much is each statement like you?
Seven dimensions of how you regulate
Read these as a description, not a grade. A pattern that costs you in one setting may serve you well in another.
Your response curve
An illustration of your answers, not a measurement. The peak reflects your Reactivity score, the return reflects Recovery, and the resting line rises with Load.
A note on the last dimension
Inner and Outer Match asks whether what you think you feel lines up with what your body is doing. In the Regulatory Identity framework, that gap is often the most informative part of the picture, and it is the hardest to see from the inside. A practitioner, a heart rate monitor, or simply a trusted person's observations can help fill it in.
If your results bring up concern about your health or wellbeing, talk with your doctor or a counsellor.
Developed by Ken Marchtaler, Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia, from his work on Regulatory Identity and embodied self-regulation. Questions or feedback:
ken@kenmarchtaler.com© 2026 Ken Marchtaler. Regulatory Identity Profile, Version 1.0, October 2026.
Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0. You may share this questionnaire freely with credit to the author. It may not be sold, used commercially, or altered, including rewording items or changing the scoring. To adapt or translate it, please contact the author for permission.
Scope of use. Intended for education, self-reflection, and conversation between practitioners and the people they work with. Not for diagnosis, clinical decisions, or employment or selection screening. The questionnaire has not been validated, and its scoring bands are provisional.
Suggested citation. Marchtaler, K. (2026). Regulatory Identity Profile: A self-reflection questionnaire (Version 1.0). Source framework: Marchtaler, K. (2026). Toward a General Theory of Embodied Identity (Preprint v1.2). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22011388