“Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint.”
Research · Impact
What the interviews are telling us.
Identity After the Uniform is a long term qualitative study. This page shows how far it has got, the themes coded from the interviews so far and how those themes shape what AURIS builds next. These are emerging patterns, not proven results.
01 · Programme progress
Research progress
Programme position: 47 transcribed and coded interviews, owner-reported as of 28 October 2026; target 108. This figure is pending verification against the interview register.
Interviews coded
47 of 108
Owner-reported; pending verification against the interview register.
Share of the planned sample
44%
The planned sample of 108 interviews is fixed.
Themes coded so far
10
Counted from the interview log, not written into this page.
Published papers keep the interview count they were written from. A paper reporting an earlier figure is a historical record and is never rewritten when the live count moves.
02 · Emerging observations
The themes
These are available aggregate counts from the interview register. Bars are scaled relative to the largest displayed count, not to the whole programme. The counts have not been reconciled here with the owner-reported programme total and should not be interpreted as population prevalence or evidence of an intervention effect.
- Absent institutional transition support6 records
- Identity role fusion3 records
- Pre planned exit as a protective factor4 records
- Translation and articulation gap4 records
- Skill and pattern misrecognition1 records
- Shrinking civilian recognition pool2 records
- Institutional mental health response gaps4 records
- Regulation practices can lapse1 records
- Identity re anchored outside the former role6 records
- Chosen exit can be smoother but not costless2 records
03 · Published records
Latest research updates
Newest first. Every update below is an already published record, shown with its own date and a link to the evidence behind it. Nothing appears here until it has been published.
- Published paper
£300 Billion. And We Are Still Asking Some of the Wrong Questions.
Occupational identity, transition and the case for asking prevention questions earlier.
- Published paper
Identity After the Uniform: What the Evidence Tells Me
A research commentary examining the evidence, its limitations and the next questions for the Identity After the Uniform programme.
- Published paper
Why AURIS Exists: The Evidence for Identity-Focused Support After the Uniform
An AURIS white paper exploring the case for identity-focused support, including a Trafford Veterans case study. Read the paper for its evidence and limitations.
- Published paper
State of the Evidence: What We Know, What We Don't, and Why This Research Is Needed
An audit of the AURIS Master Evidence Repository, conducted 30 August 2026, setting out plainly which evidence is solid, which is located but not yet fully verified, which has been downgraded, and which gaps remain open.
- Published paper
I didn't start researching identity. I started trying to help people.
A first person account of how a medical discharge in 2014, a self funded CIC in 2015 and a woodworking project in Liverpool in 2017 turned into the questions now being asked through Identity After the Uniform.
- Published paper
Where Identity Work Belongs
An AURIS white paper discussing where identity-focused work may fit alongside existing transition and support services.
- Published paper
Identity in Global Transition Policy
A review of transition policy across five countries and NATO, an alliance rather than a sixth country.
- Published paper
The Science of Sustainable Human Change
A conceptual paper presenting an integrated Identity Performance Psychology model. A proposed model is not proof that an intervention is effective.
- Published paper
Identity Performance Psychology: White Paper Vol. 2
Volume 2 of the AURIS Identity Performance Psychology white paper series. Explore the published model, its rationale and the questions it raises.
- Published paper
Behavioural Change Through Structured Awareness
An AURIS white paper setting out a structured-awareness approach to behaviour change. Read it as a published framework rather than a guarantee of personal outcomes.
- Published paper
The Identity Gap in Service Leaver Support: Why It Matters
Practical resettlement support is comprehensive, yet our review of UK transition guidance found very little explicit discussion of identity as a psychological process. This article explains what we examined, what we found, and where identity adaptation fits alongside existing support.
04 · The research process
How an interview becomes published work
- Step 1
Interview
A conversation is recorded with someone whose identity changed when a defining role ended or changed. Participants are never named on this site.
The studies running now - Step 2
Transcribe
The recording is written up in full. An interview only counts towards the figures below once there is a transcript to work from.
- Step 3
Code
Themes are drawn out of the transcript. An interview counts as coded once it carries a transcript and at least one theme, so the count can never overstate the work.
How the evidence is graded - Step 4
Publish
Once a pattern holds across enough interviews it is written up as a paper or white paper, published open access with its own record.
Everything published so far
05 · Application and limits
How the themes shape the programme
Coded themes decide what the programme studies next, what a paper can honestly claim and which part of the AURIS Framework needs strengthening. Where a theme repeats across interviews it is carried into the pillar it belongs to. Where it does not repeat, it stays in the log as a single account.
- A
Awareness
Noticing what is happening before reacting to it.
- U
Understanding
Making sense of why the reaction happens.
- R
Regulation
Steadying the response so it can be chosen.
- I
Identity
Rebuilding who you are underneath the role.
- S
Stability
Holding the change in place over time.
What we can and cannot say yet
One sequence has appeared often enough to be worth naming: identity, then community, then purpose, then stability. It is an emerging pattern in the coded interviews. It is not proven, it is not a treatment claim, and it will only be stated as a finding if it holds across the full sample.
Participants are never identified here. No names, no direct quotes and no interview dates appear on this page or anywhere in the learning material.
The live studies behind these figures are listed under current research, and everything published so far is under publications.
KEEP THE QUESTIONS OPEN
Interested in taking part or collaborating?
We welcome contact from people with lived experience, researchers and organisations who can help test and strengthen the evidence base.