A brief Introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)

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About Course

This introductory online workshop offers an accessible overview of Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) as a relational and integrative approach to understanding distress and change.

The video runs for 50 minutes, with the full workshop taking around 3 hours to complete when you engage with the learning activities. Throughout the recording, you’ll be guided on when to pause and work through the accompanying downloadable worksheets.

The content introduces the development and history of CAT, highlighting how it integrates cognitive, psychoanalytic, and relational traditions, and how it can sit alongside other therapeutic approaches in practice. A brief case example using Marge Simpson is included to demonstrate how CAT concepts can be applied in a practical, everyday way.

The worksheets support reflection on your own practice and invite you to consider how CAT ideas might be thoughtfully integrated into your current role or setting.

Learning objectives:

  1. To gain knowledge of the development and theory of Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT).
  2. To reflect on how the relational theory of CAT can be applied in practice.

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What Will You Learn?

  • This introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) highlights how difficulties are often rooted in unrevised relational patterns that are explored together between therapist and client.
  • It introduces the 3 R’s—reformulation, recognition, and revision—as a practical, collaborative way to make sense of and shift these patterns.
  • It offers a reflective “taster” to help you start noticing CAT in your own work and consider how it can sit alongside and enrich your current practice. On payment you have access to the course for 90 days.

Course Content

A brief Introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)
This self-paced online introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) takes around 2–3 hours when you pause video and use the reflective activity worksheets provided. The video is 50 minutes if you choose to view without the reflective activities. This brief introduction offers an accessible way to begin exploring CAT as a relational and integrative approach to therapy. It provides an overview of the history and theory of CAT and its application using fictional character from 'The Simpsons', Marge Simpson. It is designed to give you an informative and playful case example so you can think more about how you may want to apply CAT thinking in your work and its a 'taster' of what you could delve more into, whether it be more reading, a CAT skills course or the 2 year CAT practitioner course. The course includes approximately 1 hour of pre-recorded teaching that introduces the origins of CAT, how it has developed, and why it continues to be so relevant in practice today. You’ll be guided through CAT’s way of understanding change through reformulation, recognition and revision (the 3 R’s), and the central idea of reciprocal roles. The focus is on how CAT is used collaboratively to make sense of relational patterns that may feel stuck, and how people can begin to find ways of relating that feel more flexible and workable. Throughout the lecture, there are five reflective pause points inviting you to consider how CAT might fit with your own work and the people you support. PowerPoint slides and 2 reflective worksheets are provided to support your learning, along with a brief quiz. On completion, a certificate of attendance is issued. Once registered you have access for 4 weeks.

  • A brief Intro to CAT Slides_pdf
  • A brief Introduction to Cognitive Analytic Therapy_video
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  • Reflective Worksheet 1_Intro_to_CAT
  • Reflective worksheet 2_Intro_to_CAT
  • A brief Introduction to CAT quiz assessment
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