What is Cognitive Analytic Therapy?
Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is... ...a collaborative, relational therapeutic approach. It can help us identify self-limiting patterns of behaviour that may be holding us back in life. CAT is time-limited which means we start the work knowing we will work towards it coming to an end. We arrive at the number of sessions after identifying a focus and together identifying whether 8, 16, 24 or 32 sessions would be workable.
CAT tools Through letters, maps and accessing creative resources within you, we can gain a deeper understanding of what it is you are seeking help to address. By exploring what messages have been carried with us since childhood, we can name and creatively explore ways of relating and how these previous survival strategies may have become obstacles to future growth.
CAT theory You could say, 'no two CATs are the same'. Working from an approach which is not manualised allows for natural spontaneity when two people meet, the bespoke approach to the therapeutic relationship as CAT is not a manualised therapy. CAT therapists also invite you to use your own words, symbols and creative influences in the cognitive aspects of therapy. CAT draws on a range of theories: psychoanalytic object relations theory (Thomas Ogden, Ronald Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Heinz Kohut), social theory (Lev Vygotsky), personal construct theory (George Kelly) and dialogism (Mikhail Bakhtin, Michael Holquist). Due to this vast array of theoretical underpinnings and influences, the approach I take when working with CAT is integrative, with space for an open exploration into the unknown viewed through multiple theoretical prisms.
