Emotional Overload Reset
A deliberate act of resetting emotional overload so the user can re-engage with their own needs. Distinguished from ongoing self-soothing by being a discrete, marked break that re-orients the user after overload.
Operational Definition
EVENT. One occurrence would be coded when, following a user signal of emotional overload, the user performs an explicit reset act (a stated break, grounding step, or re-centering prompt) and the next user turn indicates re-orientation toward their own needs or priorities. The overload, reset, re-orientation sequence is the unit counted.
Measurement Schema
Proposed measurement protocol (not yet empirically validated): Pre/post momentary affect-load self-report (single-item 1-7 'how overwhelmed do you feel') bracketing the reset act; effect quantified as the within-user drop in load. Coders verify an explicit reset act occurred, with agreement would be assessed via Cohen's kappa. Could be reported as mean load reduction per reset and reset-completion rate.