Cognitive Analytic Therapy

Cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) is a form of psychological therapy initially developed in the United Kingdom by Anthony Ryle. This time-limited therapy was developed within the UK's National Health Service to provide effective and affordable psychological treatment realistically deliverable in a resource-constrained public health system, and it is distinctive for its intensive use of reformulation, its integration of cognitive and analytic practice, and its collaborative involvement of the patient in their own treatment. Practitioners work with patients to identify procedural sequences, the chains of events, thoughts, emotions and motivations that establish and maintain a target problem, and also use reciprocal roles, which identify problems as occurring between people rather than within the patient and which can be set up in early life and replayed later.