Feel First · Affect Relational Theory

Discover Your Relationship Animal

Eight innate patterns. One shared purpose: relational safety. Find out which animal you become when connection feels uncertain, and what that pattern is trying to protect.

How it Works

Three steps to your pattern

Take the assessment

Thirty statements, about ten minutes. Answer honestly, not how you wish you were.

Meet your animal

See your primary and secondary archetype, your full profile, and who you tend to match with.

Go deeper

Read the Primer, join a workshop, or bring your pattern into a group built around exactly this work.

The Ecosystem

Meet the eight archetypes

Each one is a learned strategy for managing the Drop, the pre-cognitive signal that fires when connection feels uncertain. Most people carry two or three in significant measure.

🐶

Puppy

The Enthusiast

Reaches toward connection when the Drop fires.

🐱

Cat

The Independent

Manages exposure through evaluation and distance.

🐕

Sheepdog

The Protector

Routes the Drop into protective action.

🦅

Hawk

The Strategist

Routes the Drop outward into clarity and defense.

🐴

Horse

The Steadfast

Runs at high amplitude in both directions.

🐢

Sea Turtle

The Slow-to-Trust

Manages the Drop through preemptive distance.

🐦

Hummingbird

The Adapter

Moves fast enough to outrun the Drop.

🦔

Hedgehog

The Self-Preserver

Manages the Drop through containment.

The Foundation

What is the Drop?

Something happens in a relationship and your body responds before your mind catches up. A signal. A split-second drop in felt safety your nervous system registers before you have language for it.

Each archetype is a characteristic response to that signal, not a personality type. Your archetype is revealed most clearly by what you do after the Drop: reach, withdraw, take charge, scan, ground, shift, armor, or slow down.

Awareness creates choice. Choice creates change. Change builds relational safety.

Feel First · A.R.T.

The Relational Animal Archetype Primer

An extended guide to your eight patterns

Dr. Scott Conkright, Psy.D.

Go Deeper

The Relational Animal Archetype Primer

$9.99

The free brochure gives you the outline. The Primer is the full guide: every archetype explored in depth, the theory behind the Drop, and a practical path for working with your own pattern instead of being run by it.

Continue The Work

Build the four ingredients

Every thriving relationship needs relational safety, growth, purpose, and joy. These offerings use your archetype as the starting point for building all four, with yourself and with the people you love.

📝

Workshops

Half-day and full-day in-person sessions built around the archetype framework. Learn your pattern, learn the patterns of the people closest to you, and practice the Notice, Name, Choose framework live.

💻

Webinars

Live online sessions for people who want the depth of a workshop without the travel. Smaller, focused topics: one archetype, one dynamic, one skill at a time.

🌿

Therapy Groups

Ongoing clinical groups for people ready to do real work on their relational pattern, with Dr. Conkright and a small group of others doing the same. Archetype-informed, affect-first, and confidential.

Start with your pattern.

Thirty questions. Eight archetypes. One honest look at how you manage closeness, distance, and everything in between.

Discover Your Relationship Animal

Three steps to your pattern

Take the assessment

Meet your animal

Go deeper

Meet the eight archetypes

Puppy

Cat

Sheepdog

Hawk

Horse

Sea Turtle

Hummingbird

Hedgehog

What is the Drop?

The Relational Animal Archetype Primer

The Relational Animal Archetype Primer

Build the four ingredients

Workshops

Webinars

Therapy Groups

Start with your pattern.

Wheel of Shame

Latalescence