Unlocking Collaboration and Engagement with the New Reciprocal Role Deck in CAT Training & Education

For many trainees new to Cognitive Analytic Therapy, one of the early pressures is the expectation to name reciprocal roles quickly and confidently. In teaching and supervision settings, this often shows up as hesitation, over-certainty, or a fear of getting it wrong—particularly in the early stages of training when the language of CAT is still unfamiliar.

The Reciprocal Role Deck

The Reciprocal Role Deck was developed to offer a different starting point. Having a tangible set of reciprocal roles laid out in front of trainees reduces the pressure to produce a role on demand. Instead of asking trainees to name a role, the work can begin with noticing. What feels familiar, what resonates, what seems close but not quite right? The cards hold the language, allowing attention to stay with the relational pattern.

In teaching settings, having the deck physically present often shifts the quality of discussion. As reciprocal roles are introduced, the cards act as a visual anchor, something to return to, reference, and think with as examples evolve. This supports trainees to become familiar with CAT concepts over time, without requiring them to get it “right” straight away.

CAT Skills Trainees using the Reciprocal Role Decks

Voluntary Sector Staff being trained using the Reciprocal Role Decks

The first training delivered in 2021 using the Reciprocal Role Decks

We first developed the deck in 2021 as a teaching aid and have since used it with over 700 trainees across a range of training contexts. This has included; Introductory courses to CAT, Trauma Informed Care training and accredited CAT Skills qualifications.

All of this experience has informed how the deck is structured and worded, refined by what helps learners stay engaged, reflect relationally, and remain within reach of the concepts being taught.

In this second version, now being brought to market, we’ve expanded the resource to include a set of intolerable emotions cards. These allow trainees to deepen their exploration of reciprocal roles by attending to the emotional states that maintain them, often opening up richer clinical discussion.

Used alongside the new CAT Traps, Dilemmas and Snags cards, trainees can begin to assemble rudimentary maps and diagrams without committing pen to paper. For many learners, this provides a more contained way to experiment with CAT mapping—allowing ideas to be tried out, moved, and reconsidered before anything feels fixed. The addition of two blank role cards in each deck, means that a more nuanced role can be identified and then written in dry-wipe pen, increasing the decks versatility.

The result is a learning experience that supports collaboration, reflection, and confidence-building, while ensuring these concepts are accessible to people with various learning styles. This stays true to CAT's routes, which is learnt relationally and experientially, held within the trainee’s zone of proximal development, where understanding can be scaffolded and extended over time.

The Reciprocal Role Deck can be support you and your trainees across teaching, supervision, consultation, and clinical work, through it's intentional design and support of relational thinking, whatever it's at. Each context invites a different use, but the aim remains the same: to make CAT concepts accessible, shareable, and practical in the moment.

Purchase your Reciprocal Role Deck Today

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