Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT)

This is a type of talking therapy between a service user and a therapist, one to one. It is based on the belief that the difficulties associated with borderline personality disorder come from feeling disconnected (or partially dissociated) from different parts of our self or identities, sometimes called ‘self states’. It is thought that people switch rapidly between these ‘self states’ leaving them unable to control their emotions so that they might feel disconnected from their emotions as if they are not real or express their emotions in a very intense way. The aim of cognitive analytic therapy is for the therapist and service user to work together to understand this process. To do this they would look at times when this has happened both in life generally and within therapy.