States, Self-states and State Shifts ~ 5 April 2019

Past Catalyse Events

Image of multicoloured triangles indicating complexity

States, Self-states & State Shifts: mapping & working with complexity using CAT’s Multiple Self States Model

A one-day workshop led by Sarah Littlejohn and Dawn Bennett

Please note this event has passed.

Hashtag: #CATmssm19

Date:       Friday 5 April 2019
Time:      10.00 am to 4.45 pm
Venue:    Chancellors Hotel, Chancellors Way, Moseley Road, Manchester M14 6NN
Fees:       ACAT member :: £125.00       Non-ACAT member :: £140.00
[Invoicing can be requested and incurs an additional £15 fee].
The workshop includes lunch, refreshments and course handouts.

Overview of workshop:

Individual clinicians and teams can feel challenged when working with people whose difficulties attract a diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’.  Staff can become involved in interpersonal enactments which damage the therapeutic alliance and increase the likelihood of disengagement from therapy. Therapeutic work can be undermined in other ways, including loss of empathy and increased staff burnout.

CAT’s Multiple Self States Model (MSSM) provides an understanding of the processes at play in working with complex presentations. CAT tools and skills enable the clinician to offer a non-collusive therapeutic response to complexity. The MSSM can also inform and foster more benign clinical management when used in consultancy and indirect work with teams and systems providing care for this client group.

Aims and learning outcomes:
This day offered an opportunity to develop competencies for working with complexity in direct work. It was structured around clinical material and aimed to:

  • develop participants’ ability to recognise and identify states and self-states
  • build skills in reformulating (mapping) complex material, and tracking states and state shifts
  • use real material to demonstrate the competencies involved in working with in-session enactments
  • offer opportunities for skills to be practised in experiential small-group work

Who was it for?
The day was aimed at those qualified, or currently training, as a cognitive analytic therapy practitioner.  Additionally it was suitable for other therapists with considerable knowledge and clinical skills in CAT, who wanted to deepen their knowledge and skills in working with complex interpersonal dynamics . Relevant theory was included but the focus was on skills development and clinical application.

Facilitators
Sarah Littlejohn originally trained as an integrative psychotherapist and qualified as a CAT Practitioner in 2001. Sarah went on to be accredited as a CAT Psychotherapist, and is also an accredited supervisor and trainer. She’s been a lead trainer for the Catalyse Practitioner Training for more than a decade and provides supervision for Practitioner Trainees and for IRRAPT trainees. Sarah runs introductory CAT workshops to a range of professionals each year. She has been a past chair of both ACAT’s Training Committee and Catalyse Executive. She is particularly interested in how CAT provides a framework for the early formulation of complexity, and uses of the therapeutic relationship.

Dawn Bennett is a consultant clinical psychologist.  In the NHS she has worked in in-patient and community services in adult mental health and as clinical lead.  Dawn is a CAT psychotherapist and CAT supervisor.  She is Director/Co-ordinator of the two year Catalyse Practitioner Training course, has a lead role in ACAT’s Training Committee and is current chair of Catalyse Executive. She has run CAT skills courses for generic mental health workers in community and in-patient teams and is interested in promoting psychologically informed care.

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