What T told me (she did this in her own therapy experience so she LIVED it) is that feeling the emotions when telling the story is the essential piece. You must process it, grieve it, and learn to move beyond it. This may entail many repetitions of the story or not. A person knows they have healed when they can talk about the situation or trauma like he/she might talk about going out to lunch for a sandwich. In her experience it was the hardest thing she had to do.

The way I see it, we have wounds from our past. They scabbed over and healed at the time the injury occurred, but since we ineffectively processed these emotional wounds, infection remains within. I view the therapy process as:
1. Reopening the wounds (talking about the situation or trauma),
2. Getting the infection out (processing the emotions related to the situation or trauma),
3. Allowing the wound to heal correctly (move beyond the situation or trauma).

This process may have to be repeated and possibly more than once for us to move beyond the trauma. Good luck, it takes much courage to do this. That's why this "hive mind" of ours is full of brave, intelligent people!