In the vein of therapies of cognitive-behavioral therapies, we note cognitive analytic therapy. What is cognitive analytic therapy? What is its origin? What are these theoretical foundations? What are the functional principles of cognitive analytic therapy?

What is Cognitive Analytic Therapy?

Cognitive analytic therapy is a form of short-term psychotherapy, based on the integration of Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy (CBT) and Dynamics. Originally developed in the 1980s by Anthony Ryle to treat neurotic disorders, it is now used for the treatment of personality disorders, and especially for borderline disorders. By the way, what are neurotic disorders and borderline disorders?

The term neurosis (or neurosis) in clinical psychology refers to a set of psychopathological disorders, generally resulting from an unconscious conflict, whose basic transversal symptom is constituted by anxiety. Relatively benign psychiatric diseases, neuroses are nevertheless serious because of their chronic nature. Those who suffer from it are well aware of it and can see their daily life ruined by these disorders.

With regard to borderline disorders, they allude to personality disorders. A borderline personality disorder is defined today as a disorder characterized by excessive and variable emotional experience and instability over the identity of the individual. One of the most typical symptoms of this disorder is the fear of abandonment. Borderline subjects tend to suffer a collapse in self-confidence and mood and adopt self-destructive and destructive behaviors in their interpersonal relationships. Some people may suffer from extremely short Acute Depressive Moments, for example, a few hours, and switch between normal behaviors.

I – Definition of Cognitive Analytic Therapy

Cognitive Analytic Therapy is a therapy defined by its practitioners as a collaborative non-manual basis, applied to examine how a person thinks, the emotions of experiences, acts in the world in relation to life events and relationships that imply these efforts (often derived from childhood or early experiences of life).

CAT is a psychotherapeutic approach that involves a model of relational self-development; is a model, therefore, fundamentally relational, both in the person’s vision and in psychotherapy. It is a short-term therapy, which includes 4 to 24 sessions; In general, it offers 16 sessions.

II – The origins of Cognitive Analytic Therapy

Cognitive Analytic Therapy was developed in the early ’80s by Anthony Ryle, Guy St. Thomas Hospital in London.

Who is Anthony Ryle? Anthony Ryle (March 2, 1927 – September 29, 2016), was an English medical doctor. He studied at Oxford and University College Hospital, qualified in medicine in 1949. He worked as a General Practitioner in North London, then directed the University of Sussex Health Service, and later worked as a Consultant Psychotherapist in St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, from 1983 to 1992. While in general practice, it is a case in point that it has been diagnosed with clinical problems, which is confirmed by epidemiological studies. He developed a career in psychotherapy and later developed a limited time that can be offered in the National Health Service. This type of therapy is known as cognitive analytic therapy. In the 1960s he moved to Kingston, on the outskirts of Lewes, East Sussex with his wife and four children.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy has been designed as a response to the needs of public health services for a densely populated London center. This problematic aspect of the rules governing access to service and the equality of the mental health service remains, in particular, at the heart of the intervention model. Ryle felt it was important to offer a specific, short-term, targeted care service in the public service: a therapy that could integrate the strengths of different approaches to managing people’s problems and that could also be used to research studies and improvement, therefore, with the culture of the experience of therapists and patients.

III – The Theoretical Foundations of Cognitive Analytic Therapy

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is based on:

1. Conflict-Related Psychoanalytic Concepts, Defense Mechanisms, Object Relations, and the Analysis of Transference and Countertransference, Particularly to Donald Winnicott’s Theories.

Donald Woods Winnicott, born April 7, 1896, in Plymouth and died January 25, 1971, in London, is a British child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

A defense mechanism, in psychoanalytic theory, is a function of their ‘I’ through which has protected itself from excessive libidinal demands or instinctive experiences too intense that it is not able to deal directly.

The theory of defense mechanisms is borrowed from the experience of various clinical psychoanalysts in the observation of the most frequent reactions of patients to the experience particularly painful or considered insurmountable, but also against the common relational situations, but to create difficulties in integrating the sphere of impulses and morality. By extension psychology, It means all these psychic mechanisms, conscious and unconscious, implemented by the individual to protect himself from environmental situations, existential and relational painful or potentially dangerous.

In psychoanalysis, the object relation is the relationship of an individual (the subject) with the objects that constitute the world in which he lives. This world is essentially as much internal as it is external. The object is always the object of the drive.

The “transfer” in psychology and psychoanalysis is an essential element. This is a projection of the emotions and feelings of the patient about his therapist. He opposes the “countertransference” that the therapist feels towards the patient. Our article gives you all the leads to better understand it.

Psychoanalysis refers to a process in which unconscious feelings or desires for the first objects invested in the story of a subject – most often the parents – are transferred to another person.

2. Concepts Related to the Proximal Zone of Development (PDZ) and the Concept of Development of Lev Vygotskij.

The proximal development zone (PDZ), also translated as “near development zone” or “next development zone” in the most recent translations, is a concept derived from Lev Vygotsky’s work on early childhood development.

Socialize and learn. In the theory of social development, Leo Vygotsky explains primarily that socialization affects the learning process in an individual. He tries to explain consciousness or sensitivity as a result of socialization.

Lev Semionovich Vygotsky was born November 5, 1896, according to the old Russian calendar in Orcha, in the Russian Empire (today in Belarus) near Vitebsk and died June 11, 1934, in Moscow, is a pedagogical psychologist Belarusian then Soviet, known for his research in developmental psychology and his historical-cultural theory of psyche.

3. The Concept of “Dialogue” by Michail Michajlovic Bakhtin

Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin was born in Oryol on November 17 in 1895 – and died in Moscow on March 7, 1975. He was a Russian philosopher and literary critic.

The concept of “dialogue” is generally considered by him, almost an expressive polyphonic kaleidoscope, where a monologue, if it exists, can have its truth and from its own unique point of view. It is in the language that they cannot be dialogue, including in this the relationship between the author and the hero (that is, the character, which can be as much surprise the author), the aesthetics and ethics, art and responsibility for others.

4. the Theory of Personal Constructions George Kelly and His Work on the Grid Repertoire; A Study of the Procedures That People Attribute Meaning to Their World (“The Man as a Scientist”) Working in Collaboration with Patients;

In 1955, George Kelly presented the theory of personal constructions as an alternative to the two main approaches to explaining human understanding: behaviorism and psychodynamic theories (psychoanalysis). This current has challenged existing psychological thinking.

Traditionally, psychological research has considered all the people she studies as subjects, differentiating them from someone who, like them, tries to make sense of events. In this regard, Kelly has suggested that we need to change the nature of how we view science if it applies to human beings.

The work on Kelly’s Grid or Kelly’s Triads is a survey method developed by American psychologist George Kelly that identifies the perceptual repertoires of the respondent. It will give rise to the psychology of the personal construct (Personal construct psychology, PCP). The method consists of three phases. The first phase called “elicitation” (elicitation) of the constructs is to present him as and three possible choices. We ask for a comparative analysis that will lead to the exclusion of one of the three choices since the two others seem to him to be close or comparable. We can then identify the evaluation criteria used by the respondent. In a second phase, the constructs are classified in a grid and then analyzed in a third phase. However, the method can reveal a rather heavy administration leading to the exasperation of some respondents, whose responses can then be altered.

5. Cognitive Approaches That Involve Step-By-Step Capacity Schedules and Measurement of Change; Teaching the Patient Self-Monitoring Skills (“Self-Observation”) about Your Mood, Thoughts, and Symptoms.

Here the patient is educated. This education is directed to his moods, his thoughts in order to bring out the symptoms of the disorder or the pain from which he suffers.

IV – The Functional Principles of Cognitive Analytic Therapy

– The formation of a relationship of trust with the therapist, which allows you to explore the difficulties they face.

– The identification of these problems and how they affect their lives and well-being.

– Researching the underlying causes of problems in relation to their past and interpersonal relationships.

– Understanding and learning to cope with strong emotions – cannot be managed by adapting their behavior to relationships with others and with themselves.

– The identification of how these useful models can then become dysfunctional over time

– The discovery that you can continue to take action even before the therapy is over…

The TAC tries to focus on certain problematic aspects that the person brings the therapy (called “target problems”) and the underlying motives through which we relate to ourselves and others. It is a model of intervention trans-diagnosis that does not focus on the terms of the traditional psychiatric classificatory manual.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy is mainly applied at the individual level, but can also be used to help couples or groups of people to better understand their operations through an approach called “Contextual Reformulation”.

In Summary

– Cognitive Analytic Therapy is very useful in short and punctual treatments (based on 12 or 16 sessions) to improve certain behaviors, distorted thoughts, behavior problems…

– It is generally implemented in the mental health fields of many hospitals.

Cognitive analytic therapy links cognitive therapy to analytic psychology.

– The goal is to help the patient understand why he thinks as he does or why he behaves as he does. In this way, you have different adaptation techniques to initiate the change.