Create a testimony document

NET produces a written testimony of the person’s life — a document that the person and therapist co-author and that the person keeps.

Why it works

The testimony is the written record of the narrative work: a chronological life account that includes the traumatic events placed in their biographical context. The document serves two functions. First, writing and reading it is part of the exposure and integration process. Second, the completed document gives the person an external, storied account of their own life that carries the therapeutic recontextualization — a counter to the fragmented, shame-laden internal narrative that PTSD often produces. In many humanitarian contexts, the testimony is also shared publicly as a form of witnessing.

How to do it

1. The therapist reads back the narrative at each session, corrects it with the client, and adds it to the growing written document.
2. After all trauma hotspots have been narrated, the therapist produces a complete, coherent written account.
3. The document is read to the client and a corrected final version is given to them to keep.
4. In some contexts, the client may choose to share the testimony — with trusted others, advocacy groups, or as historical record.

Evidence

The testimony component is part of the full NET protocol across all trials. Its specific contribution as a therapeutic element has not been isolated. As a humanitarian tool, the public testimony tradition has been used in truth and reconciliation processes with qualitative reports of meaning and integration, but controlled evidence does not exist for the testimony step separately. (clinical)

The testimony is integral to NET as delivered in research; its specific mechanism contribution (beyond the narrative exposure itself) is not experimentally isolated.

Sources

• Schauer et al. (2011), NET manual — testimony as a core protocol element

Common mistake

Treating the written testimony as an end product rather than part of the therapeutic process. The reading and correcting of the draft with the therapist — not just the final document — is part of the exposure and integration.