A clinically informed framework for supporting individuals with Pathological Demand Avoidance. Six pillars. A triage protocol. Assessment instruments. Phased implementation. The structured intervention tools the PDA field has been missing.
Each pillar addresses a distinct mechanism in the PDA nervous system response. Together, they form a complete support framework.
The therapeutic alliance as the foundation of all intervention. Without felt safety in the relationship, no strategy works. Relationship is not a prerequisite you check off — it is the ongoing, active infrastructure that makes every other pillar possible. For PDA individuals, the relationship itself can be a demand. RELATE addresses this directly.
Perspective-taking that leads to compassion and shifts the supporter's internal state. Empathy in RELATE is not a feeling — it is an active cognitive process. When a supporter takes the perspective of the PDA individual, it changes the supporter's own nervous system state, which the PDA individual then detects through neuroception. Empathy is the mechanism by which the supporter becomes safe.
Systematic demand reduction based on nervous system capacity — not a one-time accommodation, but an ongoing calibration. RELATE teaches supporters to identify visible, invisible, and ambient demands, then reduce them strategically using the Demand Audit tool. Lower demands is not permissiveness. It is clinical precision about what a nervous system can tolerate.
Personalization of every strategy based on assessment data. No two PDA presentations are identical. The Adjust pillar ensures that RELATE is never applied as a rigid protocol — it is continuously calibrated to the individual using the RELATE Assessment, demand audits, and ongoing outcome tracking. Adjust is what makes RELATE a living framework rather than a static manual.
Respecting nervous system timelines rather than institutional ones. PDA recovery, trust-building, and capacity expansion operate on biological time — not school schedules, insurance authorizations, or treatment plan deadlines. The Time pillar teaches supporters to read readiness signals rather than impose arbitrary benchmarks.
Physical, sensory, and social conditions that either support or undermine nervous system safety. Environment includes the literal space (lighting, noise, layout) and the invisible architecture of expectations, routines, and social demands embedded in any setting. Modifying the environment is often the highest-leverage intervention available.
RELATE is the long game. ADAPT is the five-step triage tool for when a PDA individual is in crisis, escalation, or shutdown — right now.
Read the nervous system state. Is the individual in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn? Your response depends entirely on this read.
Lower demands immediately. Remove whatever is driving the current activation — expectations, language, proximity, sensory input.
Match your energy to theirs. A dysregulated supporter cannot co-regulate a dysregulated individual. Alignment is the bridge.
Slow everything down. Speech, movement, decision-making. The nervous system needs deceleration before it can process.
Reintroduce one small thing and watch the response. If the nervous system accepts it, continue. If not, return to Decrease.
RELATE is the framework — the six pillars that guide ongoing support, relationship building, and environment design. It operates across weeks and months.
ADAPT is the triage protocol — the five steps you use in the moment when things escalate. It operates across minutes.
Both tools are taught in the RELATE Foundational Training Manual. ADAPT lives inside the RELATE framework — it is not a separate system.
The RELATE Assessment is an eight-domain structured information-gathering instrument. It maps a person's nervous system landscape, demand sensitivities, capacity patterns, and environmental triggers — then drives strategy personalization through the Adjust pillar.
Available in five versions designed for different contexts and respondents. Designed to be readministered over time to track progress and recalibrate support.
Not a diagnostic tool. Not a psychometric assessment. A clinical planning instrument.