Trauma Narrative

Goal

To be able to recall the event in detail and cope with the subsequent emotional response

Recalling the Traumatic Event

Your memory of the traumatic event may be inaccurate or incomplete due to your efforts to make sense of the event. By recalling a detailed account of what happened and allowing yourself to experience an emotional response to the account, more stuck points will likely surface.

Trauma Narrative Exercise Part I

Instructions: On a separate piece of paper, write a detailed account of the traumatic event and read it out loud to yourself every day for the next 3 days. Be sure to include as many sensory details as possible as well as your thoughts and feelings during the event. This activity will likely be difficult for you at first but will become less intense with time. If you feel anxious at any point in part I or part II of this exercise, practice diaphragmatic breathing.

Reflect on which part is the most difficult to read and identify your emotion(s) related to that part. Allow yourself to experience those feelings and try not to run away from them. By allowing them to run their course, they will likely decrease over time.

Trauma Narrative Exercise Part II

Instructions: After you have read your first trauma narrative out loud to yourself for three days, write another detailed account of the traumatic event. Add any details that you may have left out the first time you wrote it out and provide even more sensory details.

As you are writing, record in parentheses any thoughts and feelings that you are experiencing both in the present moment and at the time of the event. This will allow you to capture your reaction to some of the details of your trauma account both presently and in the past. Read the detailed account out loud to yourself every day for the next 3 days. Be sure to read it with as much emotion as possible.

Next Step

If you struggle to cope with your emotions during these exercises, you may benefit from engaging in an additional relaxation exercise such as deep muscle relaxation, which can be found in the following video: