Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET)
A short-term therapy for trauma that places difficult experiences in the story of your whole life.
Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) is a short-term, structured therapy developed for people who have lived through multiple or prolonged traumatic experiences. Instead of focusing on a single event, it looks at your life as a whole, and helps you to tell the story of what has happened in a way that makes sense.
After repeated or prolonged trauma, memories are often fragmented and can intrude without warning. NET helps to place these experiences in order and in context, so that they can become part of your life story, rather than something that keeps taking over the present.
What NET involves
- Creating a lifeline, a visual timeline of the significant events in your life, including both difficult and positive experiences
- Going through your life story in order, from early life to the present
- Revisiting difficult experiences in a careful and paced way, so that feelings and meaning are brought together with the facts
- Where you wish, producing a written account of your life story to keep
- Looking towards the future, with a stronger sense of your own identity and values
Who NET can help
NET can help people who have experienced many traumatic events, or trauma over a long period of time, including difficult experiences in childhood, abuse, violence, loss or displacement. It is often a good fit when experiences have blurred together, or when it is hard to know where to begin. It is a different approach from Narrative Therapy, although both value the importance of the stories we tell about our lives.
How I work with NET
We go at a pace that suits you, and you decide what you share. NET is time-limited, which can give a clear structure, and we agree the shape of the work together at the start. Where it helps, I may combine it with Compassion Focused Therapy or other approaches.
Related areas of support
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