Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy: Principles and Practice of a Relational Approach to Mental Health

Introduces the principles and applications of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT)

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is an increasingly popular approach to therapy that is now widely recognised as a genuinely integrative and fundamentally relational model of psychotherapy. This new edition of the definitive text to CAT offers a systematic and comprehensive introduction to its origins, development, and practice. It also provides a fully updated overview of developments in the theory, research, and applications of CAT, including clarification and re-statement of basic concepts, such as reciprocal roles and reciprocal role procedures, as well as extensions into new areas of expertise.

Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy: Principles and Practice of a Relational Approach to Mental Health, 2nd Edition starts with a brief account of the scope and focus of CAT and how it evolved and explains the main features of its practice. It next offers a brief account of a relatively straightforward therapy to give readers a sense of the unfolding structure and style of a time-limited CAT. Following that are chapters that consider the normal and abnormal development of the Self and that introduce influential concepts from Vygotskian, Bakhtinian and developmental psychology. Subsequent chapters describe selection and assessment; reformulation; the course of therapy; the ‘ideal model’ of therapist activity and its relation to the supervision of therapists; applications of CAT in various patient groups and settings and in treating personality type disorders; use in ‘reflective practice'; a CAT perspective on the ‘difficult’ patient; and systemic and ‘contextual’ approaches.

• Presents an updated introduction and overview of the principles and practice of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT)
• Updates the first edition with developments from the last decade, in which CAT theory has deepened and the approach has been applied to new patient groups and extended far beyond its roots
• Includes