Between Us

A private reflection on what takes shape between people: what a relationship creates, where it becomes constrained, and what it carries into the wider web of relationships and community.

Use it privately, alongside someone you trust, or in therapy. The person reflecting chooses every response and decides what to share. This is not a diagnostic or a verdict on any person or relationship.

Assessment wording — edit here. You may revise the headings, descriptions, notes, and numbered questions. Keep the five domain blocks and keep five questions in each numbered list. The fifth question in each block is the contrasting signal shown separately in results.

Zest & renewal

Zest

Zest is the felt sense that something fresh, interesting, playful, restful, or newly imaginable can emerge between us.

Zest is not a measure of physical energy, constant enthusiasm, productivity, speed, or sociability. Quiet and low-energy connection can still hold curiosity, renewal, and possibility.

Something feels fresh or newly imaginable between us.
What happens between us renews my curiosity.
I contribute to openness and discovery between us.
What grows between us brings curiosity into my other connections.
The space between us often feels closed to newness or discovery.

Clarity & understanding

Clarity

Clarity is a fuller understanding of ourselves, one another, the relationship, and the wider context surrounding it.

What happens between us helps the relationship make more sense.
This connection helps me understand my own experience.
I share my experience in ways that add clarity between us.
This connection helps me understand relationships in a wider context.
What happens between us often becomes difficult to make sense of.

Empowerment & action

Empowerment

Empowerment is power-with: the connection increases our influence over what happens and supports movement toward what matters.

Action can include speaking, listening, pausing, asking for help, setting a boundary, organizing, resting, or making a change. It does not require speed, independence, or productivity.

Together, we can move toward what matters.
This connection helps me find a next step that fits my circumstances.
I can help shape what happens between us.
What grows between us supports action in our wider relational world.
What happens between us can leave little room to influence what comes next.

Worth & belonging

Worth

A sense of worth grows where people experience mattering and belonging, including through difference, disagreement, and repair.

The space between us communicates that each of us matters.
My experience carries weight in this connection.
This person’s experience matters enough to influence me.
What happens between us strengthens belonging beyond this relationship.
During disagreement, belonging can feel conditional here.

Desire & capacity for more

More connection

Growth-fostering connection can widen the relational world: more good connection here, more belonging elsewhere, and more capacity for difficult conversations.

“More” does not require greater access, disclosure, closeness, or contact. Boundaries, distance, and support can all be part of a larger relational life.

There is curiosity about where this relationship might go.
What happens between us increases my desire for more good connection.
Connections this person builds beyond me can expand what is possible between us.
This connection helps me enter difficult conversations with support.
Other sources of connection can feel threatening to what we have.

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About this reflection

This original reflection tool grows from appreciation for Dr. Amy Banks’s C.A.R.E. Relational Assessment, which offered an accessible way to notice Calm, Acceptance, Resonance, and Energy across relationships. Between Us is a distinct, complementary tool—not a reproduction or replacement—and the original work remains valuable in its own right.

The framing is informed by the Five Good Things in the BCC Relational-Cultural Theory Glossary and by broader studies of social connection. Research consistently associates the quality and function of social connection with well-being, participation, resilience, and healthier communities. Culture, disability, access, resources, discrimination, power, and community conditions all shape what kinds of relationship are possible.

Please note: This is a reflective and conversational tool, not a diagnosis, a safety assessment, or a validated clinical measure. It is designed to help people notice patterns and consider possibilities for support, practice, boundaries, distance, repair, or additional connection.