About Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy (NECT)

NECT was originally developed in 2007 by Philip Yanos, David Roe and Paul Lysaker, with support from the US National Institutes of Health. NECT is a manualized, group-based psychosocial intervention that is directed towards helping people who have been labelled with a psychiatric diagnosis recover their sense of value and decrease internalized/self-stigma. It includes sections on psychoeducation, cognitive behavioral techniques, and personal story-telling, or “narrative enhancement” exercises.  NECT has been supported by research findings, including 3 independent randomized controlled trials.

The NECT Global initiative came out of the realization that NECT was being implemented in multiple countries/languages, including the US, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Israel, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Pakistan, but that there was no centralized way for materials and resources to be disseminated between these locations. Two online meetings were held in October 2023 which allowed representatives of the various sites to communicate with one another, and the NECT Global site now makes it possible for anyone interested in implementing NECT to get relevant information for their location. NECT materials remain free and open to all.