73 | Woven Together: Ari's Tapestry

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This episode is a deliberate pause: a chance to gather the threads of Ari’s journey and see the STEPS model as a whole. We begin with the heart of any assessment—the room between two people. We explore relational safety as a felt sense created by presence, tone, pacing, and transparency, and we name the real tension clinicians hold: the story that needs to unfold and the structure we need to make good decisions.

From there, we model a balanced stance—curious, compassionate, and clear—drawing on the posture of motivational interviewing. We show how narrative first honours meaning, and how validity techniques (used gently and transparently) help complete the jigsaw: normalisation, shame attenuation, behavioural incident, gentle assumption, denial of the specific, and symptom amplification.

We introduce B4Now, a simple time-window scaffold (Day 1, Two Weeks, Three Months, Before, Now) that weaves story into structure—especially when time is short or memory is scattered. We name common pitfalls (all heart/no map; all map/no heart; cannon questions; hidden agendas; premature reassurance) and how to repair them.

Then we revisit each phase—FABRIC, THREAD, NEEDLE, TIP, MEND, FLOW—before hearing Ari’s reflection in her own words: continuation is not neat, but it is possible.

We close by previewing what comes next: three practice shifts that deepen STEPS in real-world care—from prediction to prevention, from past to future, and from deficits to assets—alongside four guiding tasks that help us see not just the tear, but the tapestry in motion.

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