Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) is an evidence-based treatment for survivors of multiple and complex trauma. ‘By healing the wounds of trauma and enabling survivors to testify and recover, the transmission of trauma is stopped.’ https://www.net-institute.org/
I would spend time with you discussing whether we agree that NET feels an appropriate tool for us to use together in therapy. If we go ahead I would initially introduce the NET questionnaires which help us ascertain the nature of the abuses and trauma. We would do these in one or two sessions, followed by a session where we lay a lifeline, using symbols of stones, sticks or flowers. In my experience these interventions can bring validation and relief at this stage, especially if you’ve never spoken about the trauma before. We would then follow these with several sessions of doing the NET cycles to process different traumas. The cycle is a structured wheel of exploration which I go through step by step with you, moving between past and present. In this way the hot memories, associated with the trauma, begin to come back together with the cold memories, (e.g the fact of the trauma being in the past). These hot and cold memories get separated with PTSD, which is why flashbacks and other trauma responses are experienced. Learning compassion for your younger self is also a frequent outcome of doing the NET therapy together.
Ali Pawson 