Understanding Your Coherence Score
What your coherence score means, how it's calculated, and why it matters for personal growth.
Your coherence score is the core number in your Icosa results. It captures how well your twenty dimensions work together, not how high each one is on its own.
What Coherence Means
Think of an orchestra. Individual skill matters, but the performance depends on coordination. Coherence measures that coordination across your personality dimensions.
A high coherence score doesn’t mean you’re “better.” It means your inner systems are more aligned. Someone with moderate scores and high coherence often functions better than someone with extreme highs and lows.
The Five Bands
Your coherence score falls into one of five bands:
| Band | Range | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Thriving | 80+ | Strong integration across dimensions. Inner systems are aligned and supportive. |
| Steady | 65–79 | Good overall functioning with some areas for growth. |
| Struggling | 44–64 | Meaningful internal tension. Specific patterns may need attention. |
| Overwhelmed | 30–43 | Significant disconnection between dimensions. Support is recommended. |
| Crisis | 0–29 | Acute distress. Professional support is strongly recommended. |
These bands are not judgments. They are navigation markers. Knowing your band helps you choose the right kind of support.
How It’s Calculated
The coherence score is derived from geometric relationships across your twenty dimensions. The engine combines multiple factors:
- Grid health — overall condition of each cell, computed from bipolar distance between paired scores
- Capacity and domain alignment — whether scores within the same capacity row or domain column are internally consistent
- Gateway status — how the nine gateway positions (high-cascade cells) are performing, with bonuses for open gates and penalties for closed ones
- Fragmentation and compensation — penalties when the grid shows internal splitting or surface-level compensation for deeper imbalances
The math is complex, but the intuition is simple: coherence is high when your inner landscape is working as a unified system rather than pulling in different directions.
Why It Changes
Your coherence score isn’t fixed. It reflects your current state, which shifts with life circumstances, personal work, and time. Many people see meaningful changes in their coherence score over weeks or months, especially when they engage with their gateways.
This is by design. The Icosa treats personality as a dynamic system: something that can be understood, worked with, and developed.
What to Do With Your Score
If your coherence score is in the Thriving or Steady range, your gateways highlight where to deepen what is already working.
If you’re in the Struggling, Overwhelmed, or Crisis range, your centering plan prioritizes dimensions where intervention should have the strongest stabilizing effect. These are computed recommendations based on your profile geometry.