What is CAT?
Discover a relational, collaborative, and highly visual framework designed to bring immediate clinical clarity to every level of practice.
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The CAT Training Pathway
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Transform Your Practice. Strengthen Your Organisation
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What is CAT?
Traditional mental health frameworks can often feel overly abstract or stuck in theory. Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) changes the game by treating therapy as a collaborative, visual partnership. It blends the structured, goal-oriented focus of cognitive approaches (like CBT) with the deep relational insight of psychodynamic models.
At its core, CAT strips away complex jargon and maps out human patterns using three foundational pillars:
1. Reformulation (The Story)
We don’t just look at isolated symptoms. We map out a compassionate history of how a client arrived at this point, identifying early survival strategies that may no longer be serving them today.
2. Reciprocal Roles (The Relationships)
Human beings are fundamentally relational. CAT maps out the internal "blueprints" of how we interact with others—and ourselves. Understanding these internal roles (such as Caring/Cared For or Criticising/Criticised) is the key to unlocking systemic change.
🛠️ Visual Tool Integration: We believe relationship patterns shouldn't stay trapped in a textbook. In our training, we teach you how to use The Reciprocal Role Deck to make these dynamics tangible and interactive for clients.
3. Target Problem Procedures (The Patterns)
We pinpoint the exact behavioural patterns or loops, described as either traps, dilemmas, or snags which cause people to stay stuck in unhelpful patterns despite their best efforts to change.
📓 In-Practice Application: Tracking these daily patterns is made highly accessible using specialised tools like My CAT Diary, which help clients actively recognise their patterns outside the therapy room.
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A Relational Approach to Trauma-Informed Care
Many frontline professionals are taught to be "Trauma Aware", meaning they understand that a history of trauma impacts behavior. But awareness alone doesn’t stop a healthcare worker from feeling overwhelmed or burnt out when a distressed client pushes boundaries.
Our signature training, A Relational Approach to Trauma-Informed Care, applies the core relational mechanics of CAT to everyday, high-stress frontline environments.
Beyond Checklist Training:
We move past basic theory to give staff actionable skills. By understanding how past trauma creates automatic relationship loops (Reciprocal Roles), staff can change how they respond to challenging behaviors in real time.
Psychological Safety for Teams:
Delivered exclusively by qualified CAT therapists, this training creates secure, reflective spaces for staff to openly process their experiences, building collective team resilience and driving down systemic burnout.