ABSTRACT
The origins of this work were in the fruitful collaboration of the first author, whose origins were in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), with a Cognitive Analytic Therapist working on the treatment of the psychological consequences of extreme trauma. As the collaboration advanced it was clear that there were many parallels but that there was also much that CAT had to offer in terms of the treatment of complex or very distant traumatic events. This lies in its attention to the nature of safety within a therapeutic relationship, defined as non-collusion (below), and in the clarity of its model to guide this for the therapist and client alike. This is particularly important in the case of severe traumata, in being confronted with the intensity of emotions involved, where the therapist is at risk of being either overwhelmed or numbed in the face of such harrowing experiences. In CAT this therapeutic ‘containment’ arises within the process of ‘sequential diagrammatic reformulation’: the ‘SDR’.
