ABSTRACT

Cognitive Analytic Therapy and the Politics of Mental Health provides an overview of the development of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT), and illuminates how the political context affects the way in which therapists consider their work and facilitates their practice.

This book examines how CAT contributes to wider debates over ‘the politics of mental health’. With contributions from those working in services –  including adult mental health, learning disabilities and child and adolescent therapists – the writers consider how contemporary politics devolves responsibility for mental illness onto those suffering distress. The evolving political and social attitudes clients bring to therapy are also addressed in several chapters, and there is a focus on groups in society who have been marginalized and neglected in mental and physical health services.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy and the Politics of Mental Health offers a fresh understanding of the contemporary politics of mental health that will be of interest to all therapists and mental health professionals.

chapter 1|19 pages

Introduction

Cognitive analytic therapy and the politics of mental health

chapter 3|16 pages

Putting the social into psychotherapy

Implications for CAT

chapter 4|13 pages

The de-radicalisation of CAT

A regressive interaction of economics, theory and practice?

chapter 5|10 pages

The madness of money

The super-rich, economic inequality and mental health

chapter 7|20 pages

Using CAT to bridge the gap

Attending to the ultimate and the intimate

chapter 8|17 pages

From deviance and sin to unmet needs

A CAT conceptualisation of challenging behaviour

chapter 9|15 pages

Responding not reacting to challenging behaviour

A reformulation approach

chapter 11|26 pages

Unequal ground

Working with people affected by child sexual abuse

chapter 12|11 pages

Immorality, illegality and pathology

The sex and gender knots

chapter 13|13 pages

Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away

Recognising and reformulating gender in CAT

chapter 14|11 pages

Why hate matters

An introduction to René Girard’s theories of mimesis and the scapegoat mechanism and their relevance to CAT theory and practice

chapter 16|17 pages

How to relate

The Italian dilemma – trust and cooperation make the world go around, but do we trust and can we cooperate?

chapter 17|14 pages

A social justice framework for training in cognitive analytic therapy

Inequalities, power and politics in psychotherapy