A developing framework, proposed by clinical psychologist Mitchell Slutzky, PhD, for how living systems regulate themselves, adapt to changed conditions, and recover after catastrophic failure.
It is the felt face of regulation itself. Every organism continuously registers what state it is in, what response that state can support, and whether supply can meet demand. But affect does more than register the present state. It also compares that state with a more optimal one and helps generate the instructions by which strategy can be updated, using the same peptides that produced the readout in the first place.
Rotatable map · clickable regions · paths of regulation and repair
Threat favors speed: fast, automatic alternation between mobilization and conservation in order to meet immediate demand.
Opportunity allows accuracy: a slower, more metabolically costly process in which the system can revise its own settings and restore flexibility. At its center is Comfort Zone, the optimal regulatory state in which the other affective possibilities are held in workable balance and felt as well-being.
The interactive sphere maps this regulatory grammar. Three axes. Two hemispheres. Thirteen named affect states — each a structured address in the space, not a label but a location.
Enter the sphere →Diagnosis is not a symptom cluster. It is a trajectory through the sphere, driven by repeated mismatches between regulatory demand and available peptide supply.
See trajectories →This site presents the current state of the work — evidence, clinical implications, and open questions. Extensions, empirical anchors, and formal developments are added as the theory advances.
Read the preliminary working paper →