Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) combines analytic psychology and cognitive therapy ideas. By analysing past experiences/ events to help understand why the individual feels/thinks/behaves in a particular way, CAT therapists help with problem solving and creating coping mechanisms through new thought and behavioural patterns.
This is a form of psychological therapy which was developed in the United Kingdom by Anthony Ryle for the UK’s National Health Service with the aim of giving an effective and affordable psychological treatment that would work as a form of psychological support for the public within the nations financially-constrained public health services. It is a time-limited therapy which works quite distinctively with an intensive use of reformulation, integration of cognitive and analytic practice as well as being collaborative by nature. When an individual chooses this form of therapy they will be involved very actively as part of their treatment.
Practitioner of this form of therapy aim to collaborate with their client in order to identify steps; chains of events, thoughts, emotions and motivations which illuminate they way in which the target issue (for example alcohol addiction) was initially established and how it continued within the individual’s life. During this form of therapy the therapists makes use of reciprocal roles which are used to help identify issues as occurring between individuals rather than simply within their client. These roles may have formed during the individuals childhood are then found to be repeated in later life; for example a child that has suffered parental neglect might well feel particularly vulnerable to feelings of abandonment throughout life.
