Cognitive analytic therapy was developed in the early 1980s by Dr Anthony Ryle at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London. CAT can be extremely helpful for people who might find themselves behaving in ways that can cause tension, unhappiness or isolation when in a relationship with others, or struggle to find ways to treat themselves with acceptance and compassion; often feeling that this would be undeserved or unsustainable in the long term.
CAT is an active therapy, where you will be invited to become an observer of your life and take part in what elements need to be changed. It is goal oriented, but the goals are set to be realistic as CAT recognises that long-standing patterns of behaviours are unlikely to completely change in a few months of therapy, and so although CAT is an active treatment, it places great importance on establishing a greater self-awareness along with some key tools that enable people to continue as their own co-therapist once therapy ends.
CAT understands that many of the ways in which we behave in relationships (which could be with another, with the self e.g. if you self harm and with the environment around us) have evolved from ways we related to others when we were a child. These strategies and life-lessons were developed across a time and a context that needed them, and it is very likely that they were effective once (though this isn’t always clear and would be explored during therapy). Difficulties can arise when the same patterns, traps or dilemmas that were effective in the past, no longer fit with life over time, and yet it feels too risky to change them, or indeed such patterns are not clearly recognised. The active part of CAT helps you to take part in the process of change in your own way.
The process of a CAT therapy is to help us look at patterns of relating, and the effect these patterns are having on our relationships, our work and the way we are with ourselves. Depending on the degree of difficulty, a course of CAT usually last 16 sessions, but this can be reduced or extended depending on your needs.