Past Catalyse Event
An Introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)
A two day face-to-face workshop led by Sarah Littlejohn
Hashtag #CATintro24
Date: Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4 July 2024
Time: 9.30 am to 4.30 pm each day
Venue: Booth Street East, Central Manchester
Fees: £190.00
(The event fee included refreshments throughout both days. Invoicing incurred an additional £15 fee)
Overview of workshop
This two day face-to-face workshop provided participants with an introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Through a combination of brief theoretical presentations, video-based scenarios and live experiential exercises, they had an opportunity to understand CAT concepts and practise using some of the key skills involved.
Catalyse trainer, Sarah Littlejohn, aided exploration of different ways the CAT approach can support assessment, rapid formulation and psychological therapy. She modelled using CAT as a highly collaborative tool to help make sense of relational difficulties and common psychological symptoms, alongside working with problem patterns in the therapy relationship itself. Finally, Sarah also covered CAT’s approach to managing therapeutic endings in a thoughtful and constructive way.
She used clinical examples and role play to help demonstrate use of CAT in action. Additionally, she shared excerpts from a series of Training Films depicting a fictional CAT therapy. Catalyse developed these films for training purposes, and embed them throughout Practitioner Training.
Throughout the days participants had the chance to work with each other in pairs and small groups.
All participants received an attendance certificate for their CPD records.
Feedback from the day
“I really valued the whole 2 days. The exercises and activities gave the opportunity to immediately put the content into practice. I was able to clearly see how to apply the content in my therapeutic work. There were also some really nice, meaningful exercises that I will take forward such as listening to someone talk about something they are passionate about and turning it into a poem and the swapping supervisors exercise. It felt like the whole group were really engaged and excited about using CAT.”
“The training was really enjoyable and engaging, the training was readily translated to clinical practice. I came away from the training really enthused to work in a CAT informed way. The facilitator was very knowledgeable. The two days were a pleasure to attend. They were able to engage all- from those that were new to CAT and those with more clinical experience. Case examples were used throughout the training and this really helped to demonstrate the key features of CAT.“
Aims and learning outcomes
Over the two days, Sarah focussed on:
- introducing Cognitive Analytic concepts and methods
- demonstrating how to draw out or “map” diagrams of problematic, repeating relationship patterns. She used live examples, including those from participants’ own practice, and supported them to try out this technique
- introducing the CAT tool of letter writing. Sarah shared examples and helped practice of ways of framing and summarising client narratives, histories, presenting problems and repeating problematic patterns through writing
- aiding understanding of CAT’s theory of therapeutic change, and how to develop alternative relationship patterns and roles
- exploring how CAT can be used to understand relational patterns in therapy, help predict issues associated with poor motivation and engagement, and work with endings
Please note that attending this course did not lead to any professional qualification in Cognitive Analytic Therapy and did not qualify participants to deliver this therapy approach. For those interested in looking into further training or supervision in CAT, information and signposting to options for these were provided.
Who was it for?
This event was for anybody interested in learning more about cognitive analytic therapy.
Applicants to the Catalyse CAT Practitioner Training are required to have attended a two-day introductory course on CAT (or equivalent). This course was therefore ideal for those intending to apply in 2024. Working with Sarah, as a founding trainer for Catalyse Practitioner Training, provided a taster of the teaching style on the course.
Facilitator
Sarah Littlejohn is a CAT psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. She originally trained as an integrative psychotherapist over thirty years ago and qualified as a CAT practitioner in 2001. She’s been a lead trainer for the Catalyse Practitioner Training for many years. In addition to her training role, Sarah also provides supervision for CAT practitioner and CAT psychotherapy level trainings. She’s been a past chair of ACAT’s Training Committee and is currently co-chair of the Catalyse Executive. She’s particularly interested in how CAT provides a framework for the early formulation of complexity, and uses of the therapeutic relationship.
Location
The venue was located on Booth Street East in Central Manchester.
Participant feedback on the previous event
We asked participants what they found “most useful, interesting or enjoyable” about the previous introductory CAT workshop held in May 2023. Some responses (shared with permission) are listed below.
“Watching the video of enactments in a therapy session.”
“I really enjoyed the mixture of teaching, practice in pairs and groups, whole group discussions. The content was brilliant.”
“The application of the model to the case example.”
“I found both days really interesting and valuable. I feel like I have a much better understanding around CAT – this was a great introduction to the model.“
“Mix of didactic learning and group work, discussions, pairs, video etc. Managing enactments.”
“The repetition helped to embed the model. The group work and pairwork helped with self-reflection. The training videos were good. The self-reflection on our own procedures and how they impact the work. It was all really good, thank you.“
“How to make my work with clients more structured. I really enjoyed hearing about cases and the practising of some of the theory. I have a greater understanding of reciprocal roles and how much they are present. I feel like I will be thinking about this during my sessions with clients.”
“Putting theory into practice through the exercises.“
“Group work. Use of real case to generate discussion. Explanation of how to generate reciprocal roles.”
“I found the explanation and examples of SDR’s extremely useful as it allowed me to visualise the methodology and ‘show my working out’ which I believe will aid therapeutic rapport in the future.”
“Thinking about my own cases and how to utilise the framework of CAT, helped make all the terminology and theory more understandable – we were given lots of opportunity to do this on the course.“
Group Size
Places were limited to a maximum of thirty participants.
