Introduction to AURIS

Optional interview — watch now or return later

The approximately 12-minute estimate covers the lesson reading and practical activity. This longer interview is optional background and adds its own viewing time. You can start the lesson below without watching it; return when you want to explore identity and role change through a real conversation.

The pathways it belongs to

• Part of the Life and Role Change pathway: Changed career, made redundant or retired, and you still do not feel like yourself?
• Part of the After Service pathway: Leaving a long structured career: what happens to who you are?
• Part of the Family and Belonging pathway: Everyone asks how they are. Who asks how you are?

A pathway is a suggested order, not a requirement. This course can be taken on its own.

About this course

Nine free lessons introducing identity beyond a role, the five flexible AURIS pillars and practical ways to use them. Work through realistic examples, choose manageable actions and consider when practical or professional support is needed. Personal reflection is optional and fictional examples are welcome.

Why this matters

A change in a defining role can affect routine, relationships and a sense of identity as well as practical life. This course offers educational questions and small activities that can sit alongside employment, housing, financial, clinical or other appropriate support.

Course curriculum

9 lessons. The lesson content itself opens once you start the course.

1. Lesson 1 · about 12 minutes

   Why identity matters alongside employability

   A change in work, caring or another role can also change your routine and sense of who you are. This lesson helps you notice parts of yourself beyond that role and choose one small way to reconnect. You can use a fictional person throughout.

   • Identify a value, relationship, interest or strength beyond a changed role.
   • Choose one feasible action and distinguish it from a need for practical or professional support.

2. Lesson 2 · about 10 minutes

   The five pillars

   The five AURIS pillars are questions you can use when a situation feels unclear: what am I noticing, how am I making sense of it, what response is tolerable, what matters to me, and what could I repeat? You can start with whichever question is useful, or put a practical need first.

   • Choose a useful pillar for an ordinary or fictional situation.
   • Turn that prompt into one manageable action while allowing a different starting point.

3. Lesson 3 · about 12 minutes

   Recognise, Reframe, Reconnect

   When something changes, it can help to separate what happened from the explanation you added, then choose a useful response. Recognise, Reframe and Reconnect are prompts you can revisit. Reframing aims for accuracy; it does not require positive thinking or excusing harm.

   • Separate an observation from an interpretation in a realistic example.
   • Choose a response and identify information that would prompt a review.

4. Lesson 4 · about 8 minutes

   What support looks like

   Different needs call for different kinds of support. This lesson helps you decide what you are looking for, check what a service actually offers and choose a suitable next step. AURIS education can sit alongside practical or professional help; you do not have to finish a course before seeking it.

   • Match a fictional need to a suitable kind of support.
   • Draft a practical question about a service's scope, access, cost or qualifications.

5. Lesson 5 · about 14 minutes

   Stoic philosophy: what is yours to carry

   You may be responsible for taking a reasonable step without being able to decide the outcome. This lesson uses a Stoic perspective to separate your action, your influence and what others decide. Accepting uncertainty can include speaking up about unfairness.

   • Separate a direct action, an area of influence and an outcome.
   • Choose a proportionate response and fallback without denying unfairness.

6. Lesson 6 · about 14 minutes

   Neuroscience: a nervous system doing its job

   Under pressure, you may notice changes in attention, bodily sensations or behaviour. You do not need a brain-based explanation to describe what happened or choose a manageable response. Use an ordinary or fictional example and avoid revisiting a distressing experience.

   • Describe an observed response without inferring a diagnosis or brain mechanism.
   • Choose an optional practical response, including stopping or seeking appropriate support.

7. Lesson 7 · about 12 minutes

   Cues and reminders: making practice easier to repeat

   A reminder can help you remember an action, but it cannot make that action useful or create a feeling on demand. This lesson helps you choose a cue, try a small response and check separately whether you noticed the cue and whether the response fitted.

   • Create a cue, a small action and a fallback.
   • Distinguish noticing a reminder from finding the response useful.

8. Lesson 8 · about 14 minutes

   Behavioural science: designing for the bad week

   A useful plan has to fit a difficult week as well as an easy one. Instead of relying on willpower, choose one practical obstacle, make a realistic adjustment and decide how to check whether it helps. Resources and access can still limit what is possible.

   • Design one feasible adjustment to a practical barrier.
   • Add a minimum action and a review that considers remaining constraints.

9. Lesson 9 · about 12 minutes

   The humanistic approach: the person, not the case

   Useful support starts with the person's own priorities and choices. This lesson lets you practise asking before advising, while keeping clear boundaries about what you can offer. You can also use it to decide what you want from support yourself.

   • Draft a response that checks the person's chosen priority before offering advice.
   • Make an offer that explains scope and leaves a genuine choice.

After you finish

Use your lesson notes to make a small next-step note you can keep privately: one practice you might try, any support you need and when you will review it. Fictional examples are welcome and you may choose no further AURIS course. Completion does not promise a particular emotional outcome.

Course progression

1. Foundation→
2. Applied→
3. Practitioner

AURIS CORE 1 of 7. Universal orientation to identity adaptation and the five-pillar model. The sequence is an AURIS curriculum design, not a proven necessary or superior causal sequence.

Research and evidence

Military-to-civilian transition and identity: Sachdev & Dixit, Military Psychology (2024), DOI 10.1080/08995605.2023.2237835; Grimell, Frontiers in Sociology (2024), PMID 39399102. AURIS Identity After the Uniform interview programme is ongoing; its emerging observations are not treated as causal proof.