The words we use, and what they actually mean.
We try to write so a first-time reader and a researcher can both use the same page. Each term below is explained in one plain sentence, then in full. If a word on this site is unclear, it should be here.
Transition
Also called: leaving service, resettlement, occupational transition
The moment you leave a role, or your role changes. It is an event with a date on it.
In AURIS work, transition means the practical change of status: discharge, retirement, medical exit, redundancy, promotion out of frontline duty, or a move into civilian employment. It is bounded in time and it is usually well supported, through resettlement, careers advice, housing and finance help. Transition is the trigger for what follows, not the whole of it.
What it is not: Transition is not the same as recovery, and finishing transition well does not mean identity questions are settled.
Identity adaptation
Also called: service provider identity adaptation, identity work
The longer process of working out who you are once the role that shaped you has ended or changed.
Identity adaptation is the ongoing adjustment of self-concept, belonging, purpose and daily behaviour after a trained role stops defining you. It has no fixed end date, it can begin years after the paperwork is signed, and it can be triggered by something small. AURIS studies it as service provider identity adaptation because the pattern shows up across military, police, fire, ambulance and NHS roles, not only in the armed forces.
What it is not: It is not a diagnosis, an illness, or a sign that someone has failed to move on.
Identity Performance Psychology
Also called: IPP
The field AURIS works in: how a person's sense of who they are affects how they function day to day.
Identity Performance Psychology (IPP) studies the link between identity and performance, drawing on social identity theory, role identity theory, self-concept research and behaviour change evidence. It treats identity as something that can be described, supported and strengthened through structured practice, rather than something fixed. IPP is the field that underpins the AURIS Framework and the Identity System Membership.
What it is not: IPP is not clinical therapy and it does not treat mental illness. It sits alongside clinical care, never in place of it.
Trained-role identity fusion
When years of training bond the job to the person, so the role stops feeling like a job and starts feeling like who you are.
Fusion describes the point where role and self overlap so closely that the role's standards, language, reflexes and loyalties operate as personal ones. It is produced deliberately by good training, because it is what allows people to hold hard roles under pressure. It is also why the ending of the role is felt as a loss of self rather than a change of employment.
The AURIS Framework
Also called: A U R I S, the five pillars
Five things people work through in order: Awareness, Understanding, Regulation, Identity and Stability.
AURIS is a five-pillar developmental framework. Awareness is noticing what is happening. Understanding is making sense of why. Regulation is managing state and response. Identity is rebuilding a workable sense of self. Stability is holding that steady across ordinary life. The pillars are sequential but not one-way, people revisit earlier pillars as circumstances change.
Identity System Membership
The AURIS membership: guided reflection, structured tools, community and support in one place.
The Identity System Membership is how the AURIS Framework is delivered to individuals. It combines structured reflection, progress tracking, a moderated community and access to group sessions. It is a development system, not a clinical service, and it is designed to sit alongside any care someone is already receiving.
Coaching, not clinical
AURIS supports growth and everyday functioning. It does not diagnose or treat.
The coaching-not-clinical position defines the boundary of AURIS practice. Practitioners work on awareness, meaning, regulation habits, identity and stability. They do not assess, diagnose or treat mental health conditions, and they refer on where clinical support is indicated. This boundary is recorded in the research programme and in practitioner training.
Take the next gentle step.
Book a discovery call to speak with our team, or begin your Identity System Membership in your own time. There is no wrong starting point.