What is identity coaching?

It is work with a person on how they understand themselves, rather than only on their goals or job search. In a transition, the practical plan usually stalls until the identity question underneath it has been named and worked through.

How is it different from career transition coaching?

Career transition coaching tends to focus on the move: options, applications, interviews, timing. Identity work asks what the previous role gave the person and who they are while the move happens. The two sit well together, and the second is often what makes the first stick.

Does AURIS offer an accredited coaching qualification?

AURIS provides its own structured practitioner development in the AURIS Framework, with written assessment and internal review. It is not an external accreditation body and does not award a regulated professional licence. We describe only what we genuinely provide.

Can I start learning the framework now?

Yes. Introduction to AURIS is free and self-paced, and it is the same starting point we ask practitioners to complete first. The AURIS Practitioner Programme is currently in review, and this page will reflect its availability when that review concludes.

For practitioners

Identity and transition coaching, done properly.

Coaches, welfare leads, resettlement advisers and occupational health teams meet the same pattern repeatedly. The plan is sound, the person is capable, and nothing moves. Usually the sticking point is not the plan. It is that the person no longer knows who they are while carrying it out.

Start with AURIS See the free Introduction to AURIS

What identity and transition coaching involves

The work is narrow and difficult. You help a person name what has changed, understand what the old role gave them, settle their own state enough to think clearly, put a present-tense sentence about themselves back together, and attach it to something small that already happens in their week. You do not supply the answer at any point, because a meaning the practitioner supplied does not survive contact with an ordinary Tuesday.

How it differs from career coaching

Career coaching answers "what next?". Identity work answers "who am I while I do it?". Practitioners who only run the first often watch good plans quietly fail. Practitioners who only run the second leave people insightful and stuck. The competence worth building is knowing which one the person in front of you needs first.

What the evidence supports

Several plain findings sit underneath this work. Adjustment through major life transitions is predicted by the group memberships and identity continuity a person retains (Haslam and colleagues, 2008; Iyer and colleagues, 2009). Meaning reached is more consistently associated with better adjustment than meaning searched for (Park, 2010), on largely correlational evidence. Question wording changes what people tell you: in a randomised primary-care trial, a single word changed the number of concerns patients raised (Heritage and colleagues, 2007). Specifying when and where an action will happen improves follow through (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).

AURIS keeps its own material separate from published research and does not claim that external studies validate the framework. You can read how we apply that standard in the evidence hub.

Who this suits

Coaches working with people through career change, redundancy or retirement.
Resettlement, welfare and transition staff supporting service leavers.
Occupational health, HR and wellbeing practitioners inside organisations.
Clinicians and support workers who want a structure for identity conversations.

How AURIS practitioner development works

Practitioner learning sits inside the AURIS Academy. You begin with the free Introduction to AURIS, which is the same starting point every learner uses. Practitioner courses build facilitation competence rather than self-development: you script and rehearse the moves you will use with a real person, and you are assessed on written practitioner responses that a faculty reviewer marks.

The AURIS Practitioner Programme is currently in review. See the practitioner route for what the pathway involves, and qualifications and pathways for how the stages fit together. AURIS provides its own structured development and assessment; it is not an external accreditation body.

Start with the framework itself

Before deciding anything, work through the free Introduction to AURIS. It takes about an hour, it costs nothing, and it is the fastest honest way to judge whether this framework is one you would want to use with the people you support.