Narrative Therapy for Trauma

The Power of Narrative Exposure Therapy in Trauma Treatment

The stories we tell ourselves are powerful, and none more so than those related to traumatic events that we have had the tenacity to survive. Unfortunately, there are issues with how we tell the stories surrounding our past. This is where narrative therapy for trauma can guide you toward healing.

Narrative exposure therapy helps you tell your story, including both positive and negative elements. A skilled clinician will guide you through the past while anchoring you in the present. Clients might see fewer symptoms of PTSD after four to twelve sessions and retain gains in a year-long follow-up.

If you have multiple or complex traumas, NET (Narrative Exposure Therapy) is worth exploring for your healing. Catalina Behavioral Health offers this treatment as part of our robust and comprehensive treatment plans.

Keep reading to learn more about how narrative exposure therapy could be the key to unlocking your past and brightening your future.

What is Narrative Exposure Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders?

People who have survived traumatic events and struggle with their day-to-day lives as a result may benefit from narrative exposure therapy. This form of treatment is especially beneficial for anyone living with a history of multiple or a history of complex traumas, though it can be helpful for anyone.

But what exactly should you expect from one of these sessions with a skilled clinician?

Often, NET is offered in a group setting, but not always. During a session, the goal is to tell yourself a life story, focusing on events that cast your life in a positive light. The goal is not to center your story around a trauma narrative but rather to take into account all of the events that led up to now.

It works because trauma survivors who focus solely on the negative things that have happened to them will often experience more distress and unhappiness with their lives. This is designed to integrate those traumatic or repressed memories into the larger story of your life.

How Narrative Exposure Therapy Works for Treating PTSD

Prioritizing your mental health is essential, but you may not be able to do it on your own. The problem with having a traumatic experience is that your brain doesn’t always code it correctly when it goes to store it long-term. The result is that you may have unexpected triggers and flashbacks.

NET allows you to relive those painful memories in your own life within the confines of a safe treatment space. You’ll dive into as much detail as you can, helping you to move on. This eliminates some of your fight-or-flight response to trauma. Those memories get stored properly and limit their long-term effects on you.

The exposure process can help adult survivors of trauma such as a natural disaster or even adolescents presenting with issues like childhood abuse. It’s a robust psychological technique with proven results.

How Effective is NET if You Experienced Trauma?

Knowing how NET impacts your post-traumatic stress disorders is only part of the puzzle of finding the treatment that’s right for you. Our clinicians also look at the outcomes in controlled trials to evaluate if a particular therapy is right for our clients.

The good news?

Narrative exposure therapy has shown extreme promise in the long-term outcomes of PTSD. With your complete autobiography in hand, the active listening your therapist does is essential. In a meta-analysis of almost 1,000 participants, major improvements were seen directly following treatment.

Even better, those gains were sustained for three to twelve months at follow-up.

The same meta-regression analysis allows us to dig deeper into how narrative exposure therapy for PTSD works compared to other treatments. It’s a more effective treatment than interventions like talk therapy that aren’t designed specifically for post-traumatic stress disorders or complex traumas.

The Potential for Negative Effects of NET

Of course, not everything about narrative exposure therapy is going to improve your mental health here and now. Many clients avoid the process because reliving those past traumas is uncomfortable, just as any other trauma-focused therapy for PTSD might be.

In the short term, you might experience more intense symptoms and overwhelming emotions including uncontrollable rage, depression, or anxiety. This is why it’s beneficial to enroll in a residential trauma treatment program like those offered at Catalina Behavioral Health.

Here, we can ensure your safety and provide you with around-the-clock care when you need someone to talk to or need help implementing new coping skills. When you’re ready to graduate from NET, you can transition to a lower level of care like intensive outpatient where you have more freedom.

Keep in mind that you should only attempt NET under the guidance of a trained clinician. Trying to relive your trauma on your own could prove too difficult and result in more negative side effects.

What Does a Narrative Therapy Session Look Like?

During your time at Catalina Behavioral Health, you may attend both individual and group therapy for PTSD. The goal is the same regardless of the format. You aim to tell yourself a chronological, cohesive story about what you have been through.

You might start with the multiple traumas you experienced, but it isn’t where you end.

Instead, narrative exposure therapy is designed to eliminate dissonance between cognitive memories and the sensory memories of severe trauma. It places those multiple traumatic events in the context of your larger life story. This perspective helps to better understand and grapple with what has happened in your life.

The Therapist’s Role in NET

It might seem like you’re the one doing all of the heavy lifting to eradicate PTSD symptoms via narrative exposure therapy. However, the clinician assigned to you at Catalina Behavioral Health will facilitate the sessions with attention to detail. Their job is to anchor you in the present moment.

The therapist helps by asking you to describe a specific moment, determined by you to be a pivotal point in your life. It might be a traumatic experience or something more positive to get you started. While you think about it, the therapist will prompt you to remember sensory details and emotions that played through you at the time.

The key here is that they need to keep you anchored in the present while discussing trauma. They may ask you to use cognitive skills to remind yourself that you’re in a safe environment now. Coping skills are often taught before exposure therapy like this.

You can reflect on the entirety of your trauma story–the good and the bad. Meanwhile, the therapist will keep an autobiographical account based on your storytelling.

How Long Does It Take to Overcome Traumatic Events?

When you experienced severe trauma, it likely interrupted your sense of well-being and safety. You may now have physical responses to trauma triggers, making daily life a struggle. The first question asked by many of our clients is how long narrative exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder takes.

This trauma-focused therapy is a highly effective treatment that doesn’t take as long as many clients have come to expect. You won’t spend years reclined in a chaise lounge in a therapist’s office. In fact, according to the original study, many people saw relief from PTSD symptoms in three to six sessions.

Subsequent studies give a slightly longer timeline, but all show that trauma-related distress is treated fairly quickly. Researchers tend to agree that NET requires four to twelve sessions, each lasting about ninety minutes. In the end, you have a more solid personal identity.

What Do You Do After These Psychological Treatments?

After several sessions of this treatment approach, you might find that you have a growing story that you can tell yourself. This short-term intervention won’t last forever, but it can be intense while ongoing. As you embrace your memories, your therapist is going to keep that detailed record for you.

As the sessions wind down, it’s time to start thinking about where you want to go from here. Instead of simply sending you off into the great unknown, your therapist will work with you to come up with a plan for the future and a new story you can tell yourself.

You’ll walk away from your narrative exposure therapy with a clear and easy-to-follow autobiography that you can refer back to when your memory becomes fragmented.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy vs Narrative Exposure Therapy

It’s worth considering that there is more than one approach to treating PTSD. Prolonged exposure therapy has long been heralded as the gold standard of treatment. You’ll relive your worst moments during a cognitive behavioral therapy setting. As your system gets flooded with reminders of trauma, your therapist offers support, much like NET.

The question is: which is better when it comes to healing from trauma?

Both therapies can make you feel uncomfortable for a little while, especially in the beginning. They each have their place in a robust treatment plan. However, researchers have found that prolonged exposure therapy is best suited to single traumas while narrative exposure therapy is best for complex trauma.

NET tends to be more effective for community settings and encourages follow-through because of its relatively short timeline. Because there’s rarely homework to complete between sessions, clients don’t have to do much emotional heavy lifting during their off-time.

Finding Qualified Therapists for Narrative Exposure Therapy

Nobody wants to relive their worst moments, but it might be essential for your overall well-being to revisit them with the guidance of a structured approach like NET. The key is finding a clinician who understands the practice and timeline so that your story doesn’t become a jumbled mess.

Catalina Behavioral Health offers a safe place to land for anyone searching for professional help for the more uncomfortable parts of their story. In addition to narrative exposure therapy, we also offer other forms of interventions designed to help you live your life again.

From residential treatment to intensive outpatient, we offer something for everyone with trauma.

Give our warm and welcoming enrollment team a call today to secure a seat in our program, whether you want residential care or intensive outpatient. Our caring team can verify your insurance benefits and answer your questions in a quick and confidential call at any time!

References

1. Lely, J. C. G., Smid, G. E., Jongedijk, R. A., W Knipscheer, J., & Kleber, R. J. (2019). The effectiveness of narrative exposure therapy: a review, meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis. European journal of psychotraumatology, 10(1), 1550344.
2. Onyut, L. P., Neuner, F., Schauer, E., Ertl, V., Odenwald, M., Schauer, M., & Elbert, T. (2005). Narrative Exposure Therapy as a treatment for child war survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder: two case reports and a pilot study in an African refugee settlement. BMC psychiatry, 5, 7.
3. Adenauer, H., Catani, C., Gola, H., Keil, J., Ruf, M., Schauer, M., & Neuner, F. (2011). Narrative exposure therapy for PTSD increases top-down processing of aversive stimuli–evidence from a randomized controlled treatment trial. BMC neuroscience, 12, 127.
4. Mørkved, N., Hartmann, K., Aarsheim, L. M., Holen, D., Milde, A. M., Bomyea, J., & Thorp, S. R. (2014). A comparison of Narrative Exposure Therapy and Prolonged Exposure therapy for PTSD. Clinical psychology review, 34(6), 453–467.