Cognitive
Analytic Therapy (CAT) was developed by an American
psychiatrist, Aaron Beck, who noticed that many patients were stuck in negative
beliefs. This led to behaviours that
reinforced the thought in a circular way.
An example of this could be, ‘I am a loser’, which belief discourages
the person from applying for that better job or entering a competition. So, the ‘loser’ self-tags remains in place.
What Beck did, was to identify for patients
their circular thought behaviour patterns and discuss with them an alternative
scenario, what if? What if…you were a
winner? How would you behave today,
tomorrow, next week, if you were a winner, instead? Of course, the patient played along with
Beck’s ‘game’ and found that, on a serious note, it really made a difference to
how they perceived themselves. That
there were choices and they weren’t stuck.
With practice, these patients altered these negative core beliefs.
Terms used in Cognitive Analytic Therapy include Traps, Dilemmas and Snags.
The therapist uses everyday language, to
discuss the patient’s current beliefs, behaviours, choices and areas of
‘stuckness’ and in this way, can unlock the vicious circle.
Pam Gully offers CAT
to any client who is really hard on themselves, who seems to embrace a really
negative set of self-beliefs that make them unhappy and unfulfilled. Often, by carefully uncovering the core
belief and gently suggesting that they, together, turn the belief on its head,
this makes a real difference, in just the way it did with Beck’s patients.
