For people who have felt stuck in the same cycles despite previous therapy or their own efforts, CAT often offers a new way of understanding our problems – and a clear, time-limited path to changing them.
I am a Cognitive Analytic Therapy Practitioner with 15 years of experience using this approach across NHS and private settings, and I have genuinely seen people benefit hugely from the insights this model can provide.
CAT is a talking therapy that brings together two approaches: cognitive therapy and analytic therapy. It was developed for the NHS by Anthony Ryle in the 1980s and has been used across NHS settings and in private practice for over 45 years.
CAT has a good evidence base for helping people to change, and people like it and tend not to drop out. It is a collaborative approach, so you will be fully involved in the process throughout.
CAT is a relational therapy. Its focus is on the way you relate to yourself, how you relate to others and how they relate to you – patterns that were often established in childhood and through life experiences.
CAT is safe and widely applicable across a range of problems, such as:
It is well suited to people who have tried other therapies and found them helpful but not quite enough, or who want a therapy that addresses the relational and historical roots of their difficulties within a clearly bounded timeframe.
CAT views psychological difficulties as ways of trying to cope with difficulties in relationships – including the relationship you have with yourself.
Together we draw out the patterns that repeat in your life, how they link together and what keeps them going. We then work on finding exits: new ways of relating to yourself and others.
The diagram is an example of the kind of pattern we might map together.
Why do I always end up feeling like this?
CAT is a brief form of psychotherapy, typically 16–24 weekly sessions of 50 minutes. Because the ending is known from the beginning, there is a natural focus and energy to the work – and it often feels particularly meaningful. It moves through three stages.
You will leave with tools to keep: your own map of the relational patterns in your life and how they link together, and two letters I write for you over the course of therapy.
People often find these really helpful to refer back to once our sessions have ended – along with a clearer sense of what helps, and a more caring and compassionate relationship with themselves.
The Association for Cognitive Analytic Therapy has more information about the approach: acat.me.uk
For a self-help introduction, try Change for the Better by Elizabeth Wilde McCormick (2008).
Contact Dr Jen today to talk about whether CAT could help you.
