We recently caught up with Kim Dent-Brown to hear more about his forthcoming CPD event on the 6-Part Story Method on 27th March. NB To make it more broadly accessible, Kim’s workshop will now take place online. Running it this way will give participants an added opportunity to try it out ‘as if ‘ in remote therapy. Read on to learn more about Kim’s journey with the approach over the years.

Kim, tell us about how you initially found the 6-Part Story Method (6PSM)

Back in the late 1980s I was training as an Occupational Therapist and one of the key elements of that profession is the therapeutic use of ordinary, familiar human activity. I had a background in the theatre so I was interested in all the creative approaches to therapy. This might involve using art, music, drama, movement, working with everything from clay to stories. That was the first time I came across the method. It seemed to me that it was a very attractive and simple way of helping a client create a workable, rich metaphor for their everyday life.

After my OT training I trained as a Dramatherapist and that enabled me to work in more depth with the method. Clients and I could turn the story into an improvised drama that we could then enact, witness, comment on and re-write at will. I was working as a Dramatherapist in an NHS specialist team for personality disorder and we all used the 6PSM at times. Mary Dunn, our team leader, shared it with Glenys Parry when she (Mary) was training in CAT with Glenys. That’s how the 6PSM filtered into the CAT world.

 How has the CAT world received the 6PSM?

The CAT North practitioner training invited me to run a day for trainees but I can’t exactly remember when! Probably the early 1990s. It must have gone well because I was asked back the next year. Since then it has been a consistent element of the training, given at the very end of the first year. Every CAT North/Catalyse cohort since then has received it, except for two years when I did my own practitioner training and moved from trainer to trainee! I’m proud to say that feedback about the day (shared with Sarah Littlejohn) suggests that trainees find it an enjoyable, interesting, creative and powerful experience.

Generations of CAT practitioners have now learned the method. The one-day training gives enough of a basis for anyone to start to incorporate it into practice. I know practitioners who bring client stories to supervision, and supervisors who use it too. My own supervisor in my training encouraged me to use the 6PSM in place of administering the Psychotherapy File in the first few sessions. I never looked back. 

The 6PSM doesn’t fit only with one modality. I’ve taught it to counsellors, arts therapists, social workers and other groups. But for CAT I think it opens opportunities to look at reciprocal roles, traps and snags, procedures and exits.  

How can it help the therapeutic process?

I haven’t delivered CAT as a practitioner for a long time now so I can only answer generally. But I think introducing it early on sets a playful, inquisitive tone for a therapy. The practitioner relies on the client to interpret the story, not the other way round. This sets the client up as an expert in their own field, to be collaborated with and not ‘done to’. The process itself is almost always surprisingly enjoyable, which of course is reassuring. It may be surprising for a client who expects therapy to be like a visit to the dentist. 

If done before the reformulation letter (my preferred time to do it) then it can be a very useful source of material to help the practitioner look for process rather than content. It provides a treasure store of metaphor and simile that the therapist can use in the letter itself. Later in the therapy it can be a useful intervention to use if things have become stuck or circular. Then at the end it can be a handy way of reviewing the therapy itself prior to the goodbye letter.

Do you ever use this technique in other areas of your life/work?

My daughters are now in their thirties but when they were toddlers I used this to tell them bedtime stories. That’s to say I would ask then to identify the six elements of the story. Then I’d simply assemble them in order and elaborate a story for them. After a year or two they got wise to me but it was delightful to play storymaking with them this way. And in idle moments when I consider my retirement career as the author of a novel, I imagine using the 6PSM as a way of structuring scenes, chapters and the book itself. Then good sense takes hold and I cut the grass or plant some seedlings!

What will people take away from your day?

If you come on the course you can expect to learn how to facilitate somebody creating, telling and exploring their own new, fictional story. You’ll also take the opposite role, creating a story which might shine some creative light on an aspect of yourself or your life at the moment. Out of this practice, you’ll have the basic knowledge and skills to incorporate the 6PSM into your own work – perhaps after some further rehearsals and trials. If you are supervisor, the day will help you know the background to 6-part stories that your supervisees might bring.

Above all, I expect everyone will find this very experiential day an enjoyable and creative one. I think you may be surprised by how a method that is uncomplicated and light hearted can nevertheless be powerful and revealing.

To see more details or book a place on Kim’s day, go to The 6-Part Story Method page.

Ahead of the first CPD event of 2026, Jo Coggins caught up curiously with Sue Walsh and Kate Freshwater about their event Thinking Organisationally:  Developing CAT Supervision and Consultancy Skills. This takes place on 6th February in Manchester.

Q: Where did your interest in working organisationally begin? 

Sue

I did a Phd at the Institute of Work Psychology, and then went on to do my clinical psychology training. But the two interlocking worlds of clinical and organisational psychology always co-existed for me. They both influenced my thinking and clinical practice. It all came to life further when early in my career I co-ran organisational training events with an organisational psychologist. Events would include an audience of international and UK executives . It was clear to me that relational ways of thinking could directly influence organisational work. Furthermore, the audience liked and found it useful to use clinical/CAT ways of formulating to make sense of organisational culture and change processes in their corporate environments.

Kate

A contact from my undergraduate Psychology degree course went on to organisational work, whereas I chose the clinical route. We continued to connect professionally after I’d trained in CAT. Her enthusiasm about the concept of reciprocal roles and CAT mapping helped me see the added dimension that CAT could bring. Later in my NHS career, and with the support to develop CAT in a mental health Trust, I had opportunity to apply it more broadly beyond therapy. Staff often found the model accessible; they quickly “got it”. There seemed a natural progression from contextual work, minimising harm to clients, to enabling reflection on what we bring to our work. This helped us consider how we work best together, onto enabling effective leadership.

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about how you came to find stories and metaphor useful in this work? 

Sue 

I’ve always valued the role of stories and metaphors as a way of providing alternative realities to clients and staff who feel stuck. It’s such a good way of summarising complexity, and enabling the capacity for play and therefore ways out. 

Now I’m thinking about it the spark was struck when I was co-presenting research about organisational change in the early 2000’s . This was to a number of big, private, international companies. I would speak about interpersonal ‘soft’ factors underlying organisational change and why change feels so difficult. I asked the audience to use pen and paper to describe their current experience of system change.  Various participants drew images to represent their felt experience of roles and tasks, for example restructuring a company. Some of the images and metaphors that emerged were incredibly powerful. They made immediate sense of, say, a feeling of sheer powerlessness. This might exist even for people whose positions afford them huge structural power.

And so began a pivotal discussion which marked the beginning of this kind of work for me. Imagine, for instance, you’re a spider caught in a web, feeling you’re being devoured by an organisational process. What choices for action do you have? How do you save yourself? What systems do you preserve and what do you need to relinquish? That’s how it began. A pictorial story captures a massive amount of information very quickly and also suggests what might be possible in terms of exits. It struck me there was such a useful link with CAT ways of conceptualising difficulties. 

Q: When has thinking through a story lens has helped or enabled a shift in thinking?  

Kate

It was about 10 years ago when I first heard Sue talk about the use of stories and metaphor. These then became such a useful tool for me within my work. I find particular stories emerge repeatedly.   As an example, a “sword of Damocles” can hang over high-profile leaders, especially in situations where there is a lot of scrutiny.  This Greek story helps us connect with the double-edged nature of power.  Imminent threat or ever-present danger can end up manifesting as anxiety, over-control  of colleagues, and burnout.

Hearing this described in very personal ways has been an important lesson for me in remembering “What’s coming down on our leaders?”. It helps me stay more open and compassionate, rather than join in a dance of blame.  It also helps me encourage other staff to hold this perspective too, in the many layers of the CAT map. This story also came to mind when hearing Jenny Marshall report on the feedback from Chief Executives/Leadership in today’s NHS (Anandaciva, 2018). Voices represented in that report speak of a culture of “axes swinging” and “regulatory firing squads”.    

Another story which helped challenge my assumptions is King Lear, and discussions with Sue helped to shift my thinking.  The story of King Lear reminded me of the rage, banishment and harm that Lear dealt to his daughter Cordelia. She told him the truth.  It resonates for me, noticing my own resentment towards others who struggle to stand up to problematic senior management processes, or offer alternative views. It allows me to appreciate the complexity and the perspective of others. Then it’s easier for me to still hold some empathy towards the “yes men”.   The story represents common human behaviour and helps me resist my own map or the sometimes naïve pull to call things out.   

Sue

The phrase “Infamy, Infamy they’ve all got it in for me” comes from one of the Carry On films. At the time I was reflecting on people returning to work having had a break down and/or a toxic dispute with their work system. This phrase popped in to my mind and was a way of describing two parallel processes.

One was a felt state, when staff in psychological difficulty may feel that people have it “in for them” or they’re being “got at”.  Secondly, they might feel an intense sense of shame and humiliation. When off sick staff may fear becoming known for their “weakness” of not coping at work (infamy). Using this story can allow staff in difficulty to move away from both those experiences and feelings which can otherwise feel overwhelming.  Once a person has some distance, it can be easier to think about what they might want to do next. 

Q: What else will your event be covering?

Sue

Stories and metaphor are key aspects of our day, but the whole day takes a broader approach. Overall it covers applications of CAT more widely in organisations. We’ll be considering a whole range of these, from supervision through to identifying and influencing relational thinking in the wider organisation. 

If you’d like hear more from Sue and Kate, there’s still time to book a place on their day. You can find all the details and the booking link at Thinking Organisationally:  Developing CAT Supervision and Consultancy Skills. It’s open to trainee and qualified CAT practitioners and CAT psychotherapists. Other qualified therapists and other professionals with an existing understanding of how CAT works and its underlying theory are also welcome to attend.