Welcome to ACAT’s Public Engagement website. We are developing this as a way to make ideas and information about cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) more easily available to the public.
“With your therapist you will begin to piece together patterns that keep you feeling stuck in negative cycles”
What’s included in this site
In the articles on this site you can learn more about CAT, and ways it is applied as both a one-to-one or group psychotherapy. There are a number of first hand accounts of what it’s like to have CAT.
If you want to know more about CAT as a possible therapy for yourself, then look at the section ‘CAT for me’.
CAT ideas also help support the work of others such as teams and organisations. You can find out about where to find CAT therapy, both in the NHS and privately. A range of books, blogs, and videos are featured. You can also learn about research evidence on CAT.
The site also has a range of blogs about different aspects of CAT. We will regularly update these and feature new blogs on this home page. But we hope you will take a look around the site to find out what you want to know about this form of talking therapy.
Some recent blogs
“we looked at CAT’s effectiveness …how it compared to other treatments and therapies, and how acceptable it is…”
“Specifically we are seeking lay members, who are not therapists. Lay members may come from any walk of life, any profession, or no profession at all.”
“You can check your therapist’s name against our Register of Members. We update this every year.”
“… for some, it works better that traditional face-to-face therapy. For others it may feel much more difficult and challenging.”
The ACAT website
Our main website at https://www.acat.me.uk also holds lots of information about CAT. It is a comprehensive resource for members and professionals. You can find out more information about The Association for Cognitive Analytic Therapy there or on this summary page.
How this public engagement site came about
The site you are on was set up as a pilot, to develop and test out ways to explain CAT to people who may be interested in it as a therapy or approach for themselves, or those they care for. It came about after an open survey and two public engagement meetings in 2018 and 2019. A number of people who had used CAT as a therapy advised us on how best to communicate CAT ideas online. We hope to learn and adapt it in line with feedback.
Tell us what you think of this site
This site is a work in progress and we welcome feedback so that we can improve it. Our visitor survey is now closed but if you have any feedback you’d like to share, please do contact us by email.
Please note
We hope you will find the site useful. But please note, while it provides information to help you understand CAT ideas and approaches, it does not constitute advice and does not replace direct professional advice from an accredited Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) practitioner or psychotherapist. Nor does it replace professional advice from a medical practitioner in relation to mental or physical health or wellbeing. Please read our Terms and Conditions page for more about this.