ABSTRACT
Cognitive analytic therapy can enable people to develop more attuned therapeutic reformulations and ways forward by referencing the social influences in their lives, especially with those experiencing limited power and resources. Effective coping strategies crucially depend upon one’s position in society and the social norms that mirror/promote inequality and injustice. Anthony Ryle (the founder of CAT) (2010) notes that if we restrict attention to immediate relationships and neglect wider social forces, we distort reality. ‘Strategies’, which people find themselves enacting, are structured by power and are often survival strategies, below consciousness, acting on the level of a bodily logic. CAT needs to attend to the embodiment of psychological distress and the impact of disadvantage, discrimination and adversity.
Therapeutic work can then understand symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1984), re-formulate with reference to social power, account for the threats people still experience, and how the settings in which they live may perpetuate threat and the abuse of power. CAT can develop formulations with individuals, organisations and communities about how such influences become embodied dispositions for action. ‘Exits’ need to be social as well as individual. Promising ways forward include working in partnership with ‘experts by experience’ in mental health to co-produce research into developing fundamental changes in practice.
