Workable Ranges Model: A map and method for ‘drawing out’ embodied knowing

We introduce the Workable Ranges Model (WRM) as a visual map and method for enacting and exploring embodied knowing about stress and emotion regulation. The WRM portrays three core psychophysical states in spatial form. Optimal and flexible regulated states are positioned centrally between two lines representing thresholds of tolerance beyond which are hyperarousal above and hypoarousal below. In developing the WRM as a method of embodied enquiry, we focus on visual techniques of mapping and time-lining. To illustrate the potential of the WRM as a map and method for ‘drawing out’ embodied knowing in research participants, we describe two phases of research in which the facilitation of first-person enquiry for therapeutic purposes doubled as data generation. We then consider how the WRM might be expanded as a research tool across fields interested in similar phenomena including occupational and health psychology, sports science, and food and nutrition. In so doing, we explore three shared methodological features of our example study: (i) visual presentation of the WRM; (ii) facilitated first-person embodied enquiry; and, (iii) multiple data-collection points. The research methods presented could have wide application to describe and understand trajectories to, and experience of, conditions affected by stress and emotion dysregulation.