Dealing with trauma has to include a narrative, to put the pieces back together so that there is a more coherent story. Our brains disconnect parts of trauma, often not able to pull it together into words. Trying to put words and a timeline is part of any way of dealing with trauma.

Some T's feel that they are bearing witness to the trauma so hearing the story is part of creating a place where you are not alone especially if you actually were alone during whatever happened.

Others are more forceful, wanting every detail, like in exposure therapy. I feel that is too much, re-traumatizing, not helpful.

I have told my story many different times, in different ways. I have been able to overcome severe complex trauma to an extent through trying to put the traumatic events into a story.

At other times, I use art or non-verbal ways to get to the emotions. It is still a story, just not with words. Depends on how you are as a person, whether you are verbal or visual, internal or external, what the trauma was, how your T is, and so on.

There is no one way, but narrative is part of almost all therapies, except the ones that focus on skills or training or something else. I don't do those, don't find that is right for me or my T.

I do a lot of my own personal work, like writing in a journal or writing down dreams. These things are private; I don't share them, even in therapy. I may say something about what I'm doing but not say the whole thing.

Therapy is about you, what you need, what you have gone through. I don't think that it's right for a T to tell us what to do or pretend they experts. We pay them to help us. In the best case, they follow us not the other way around.