This video provides a brief history of Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), but more importantly introduces one of its central ideas: the reciprocal role. Reciprocal roles (RRs) are such a useful CAT concept because they help us understand how our sense of self is always linked to an expected way of relating with others. For example, if someone experiences themselves as “good enough,” there is often a connected relational stance of someone being accepting, valuing, or loving. Often these relational patterns operate outside of conscious awareness.

What makes CAT different is that it does not assume these states for the person. Instead, we become curious together about how they experience themselves, how they feel related to by others, and how they imagine or expect others to relate to them. We use their language.