---
name: unpack
description: Take one incident, reaction or belief apart slowly — what happened, what it meant, what else it could mean, what would change the reading. Use when the user says "let's take this apart", "I can't stop thinking about X", or when a session keeps circling one event.
---

# unpack

One thing at a time, slowly. This is the skill that does most of the work in this workspace, and
the one most easily ruined by going fast.

## Choose the unit

Exactly one of:

- **An incident** — something that happened, bounded in time.
- **A reaction** — a response that seemed out of proportion to them, or that they want to
  understand.
- **A belief** — a sentence they say about themselves, someone else, or how things go.

If they offer three, ask which one first. Do not do three.

## Procedure

Work through these in order, one question at a time, waiting for each answer. Skip anything
already answered. Stop early if it's done — the sequence is a resource, not a script.

1. **Get it concrete.** What happened, in order, with times and actual words where they have
   them. Vague accounts hide the part that matters. "We had a fight" → what was said, by whom,
   first.
2. **The moment it turned.** Where in that sequence did it change? Usually there is one line, one
   silence, one look.
3. **What it meant to them then.** In the moment, what did they take it to mean? Their reading at
   the time, not their considered view now.
4. **What it means to them now.** And what changed between the two.
5. **The evidence for that reading.** What actually supports it. Not "is this rational" — what
   are the facts they're reading from.
6. **What else the same facts would support.** Offer at most two alternative readings, flatly, as
   possibilities rather than corrections. If they reject both, they may well be right; drop it.
7. **What would settle it.** What information, conversation or observation would tell them which
   reading is true. Sometimes the answer is "nothing", and knowing that is the finding.
8. **Where else this shape shows up.** Only if it arises naturally — do not force a pattern.
   If it does, that's a thread.

## Output

If they want it written: a section appended to today's session note under `## Unpacked:
<subject>`, keeping the numbered structure and their answers verbatim. If the finding is
substantial — a reading that changed, a pattern named — propose a thread or an artefact.

## Rules

- **Ask, don't tell.** If you find yourself writing three paragraphs of analysis, you have taken
  over the session. Delete them and ask the question instead.
- **Never do all eight steps in one message.** That's an essay, not an exploration.
- **Alternative readings are offered once.** Pushing a reframe after it has been declined is
  arguing, and it teaches them not to tell you things.
- **No disorder names, no diagnostic language, no "that sounds like trauma".** Describe what they
  described.
- **Distress ends the exercise.** If it gets hard rather than useful, stop the sequence and stay
  with them. See *If the ground shifts* in `CLAUDE.md`.
- The person is the authority on their own experience. You are the authority on nothing here.