Is there a free test that shows the pattern that keeps repeating in my life?

Two of the options on this page are mine, the pattern test and the Atlas, and I've said so where they appear. The others are described as fairly as I can, because the right test depends on what you want to find out.

The nine-question pattern test

The pattern test asks about the first few seconds of pressure: what happens in you when someone is upset with you, when a want of your own starts to form, when you get something wrong, when an afternoon opens up with nothing to do. Those seconds matter because a pattern runs there, faster than thought, before you've had the chance to choose.

Your answers point to one of seven patterns: the Peacekeeper, the Fixer, the Sentinel, the Judge, the Performer, the Analyst and the Striver. Each started as a sensible answer to something early in life, and each is described in a few plain sentences so you can check it against what you know of yourself. It takes about three minutes. You don't give an email address and the result appears on the page.

What it won't do is tell you where your pattern started, how it shows up in your particular relationships and work, or what it has cost you. Nine questions can point at a family of patterns. They can't read a life.

The Atlas

The Atlas is the longer route, and it starts from your life rather than from a list of questions. It opens by asking what you keep doing, or what in your life never sits right, and follows your answers until the pattern underneath can be named. It takes about forty-five minutes in one sitting and ends in a written Record: what is running, the moment you saw it, where it's costing you, and what comes next. It's free. To begin, you give a first name and an email address, which is where the Record is sent. It isn't therapy and it isn't for crisis.

Other free tests, and what they measure

• Schema or “lifetrap” questionnaires. These come from Jeffrey Young's schema therapy, and the book Reinventing Your Life by Young and Janet Klosko describes eleven lifetraps, such as abandonment, defectiveness, subjugation and unrelenting standards. Young's full model has eighteen schemas, self-sacrifice among them. Free online versions score you on each theme. They're good at naming themes you recognise at once. The clinical questionnaire they're based on was built for use with a trained practitioner, so an online score is a starting point.
• Attachment style quizzes. These sort how you bond into a handful of styles, usually secure, anxious, avoidant and fearful-avoidant. They can be very useful if your repeating pattern lives mainly in close relationships. They say less about work, money or how you treat yourself.
• The Enneagram. Nine personality types, each with a core fear and a core desire. Many people find the descriptions uncannily accurate. It describes a type you are, which can make a pattern feel more fixed than it is.
• The saboteur assessment from Shirzad Chamine's Positive Intelligence. It scores ten “saboteurs”, the Judge plus nine accomplices such as the Pleaser, the Controller and the Hyper-Achiever. It's practical and aimed at work and performance.

What any test can and can't tell you

Every questionnaire has the same limit: it measures your answers, and your answers come through the pattern. Someone whose pattern is looking good will answer like someone who's fine. Someone whose pattern is self-criticism will score themselves harshly on everything. The most honest way to take any of these is to answer with what actually happens in you, not what you'd like to happen.

The bigger limit is what comes after the result. In twenty years of practice the sentence I heard most was some version of “I can see it, but I can't seem to stop.” People who already knew their type, their style or their schema were still repeating the pattern. A name is a real first step. I've written about why seeing a pattern doesn't stop it, and what does.

How to use whatever result you get

1. Read the result once and notice your first reaction. A small jolt of recognition usually means it's close. Mild interest usually means it isn't.
2. For one week, watch the first few seconds of pressure. See the reflex happen: the softening, the fixing, the bracing, the verdict. You don't have to change anything yet.
3. Write down where it showed up. Work, family, a partner, money, your body. A real pattern rarely stays in one room.
4. Then decide whether you want to go further. A book, a conversation with someone you trust, a therapist, or the Atlas are all reasonable next steps.

Where this comes from

The pattern test and the Atlas are both built from my own practice and books. The idea that a pattern runs in the first few seconds, and that seeing it isn't the same as changing it, is the central argument of Twenty Years in the Chair. On The Architect Speaks: Why your old patterns return under pressure and Why the same painful patterns keep repeating in life.