The CAT Psychotherapy file
The psychotherapy file is a questionnaire used in cognitive analytic therapy to assist in identifying a person’s emotions, thinking and behaviours that are relevant to their identified aims in therapy. It provides a quick way of getting a lot of information about a person’s experiences in relationships with others, and with themselves. Traps, dilemmas and snags are also identified through further discussion of the responses provided in the psychotherapy file.
The full questionnaire can be found on the ACAT website, however a sample of the questionnaire is provided below.
Some people find it difficult to keep control over their behaviour and experience because things feel very difficult and different at times. Indicate which, if any of the following apply to you:
1. How I feel about myself and others can be unstable; I can switch from one state of mind to a completely different one.
2. Some states may be accompanied by intense, extreme and uncontrollable emotions.
3. Other states may be accompanied by emotional blankness, feeling unreal or feeling muddled.
4. Some states are accompanied by feeling intensely guilty or angry with myself, wanting to hurt myself.
5. Or by feeling that others can’t be trusted, are going to let me down, or hurt me.
6. Or by being unreasonably angry or hurtful to others.
7. Sometimes the only way to cope with some confusing feelings is to blank them off and feel emotionally distant from others.
DIFFERENT STATES
Everybody experiences changes in how they feel about themselves and the world. But for some people these changes are extreme, sometimes sudden and confusing. In such cases there are often a number of states which recur, and learning to recognise them and shifts between them can be very helpful. Below are a number of descriptions of such states. Identify those which you experience by ringing the number. You can delete or add words to the descriptions, and there is space to add any not listed.
1. Zombie. Cut off from feelings, cut off from others, disconnected.
2. Feeling bad but soldiering on, coping.
3. Out of control rage.
4. Extra special. Looking down on others.
5. In control of self, of life, of other people.
6. Cheated by life, by others. Untrusting.
7. Provoking, teasing, seducing, winding up others.
8. Clinging, fearing abandonment.
9. Frenetically active. Too busy to think or feel.
10. Agitated, confused, anxious.
11. Feeling perfectly cared for, blissfully close to another.
12. Misunderstood, rejected, abandoned.
13. Contemptuously dismissive of myself.
14. Vulnerable, needy, passively helpless, waiting for rescue.
15. Envious, wanting to harm others, put them down, pull them down. 16. Protective, respecting of myself, of others.
17. Hurting myself, hurting others.
18. Resentfully submitting to demands.
19. Hurt, humiliated by others.
20. Secure in myself, able to be close to others.
21. Intensely critical of self, of others.
22. Frightened of others.
The psychotherapy file is not like some questionnaires, where you are expected to answer the exact question on the page. It is about exploring what patterns happen for you - so it is absolutely fine to cross out words that don’t apply or to add in examples from your life. There is no right or wrong - it is simply a tool designed to suggest ways of thinking about what you do. The aim is to help you start to recognise the patterns you get caught in as a first step in making positive change. The expectation is not that you will work through this alone, but that this can start a conversation with your therapist, allowing you to build a shared understanding of what is happening for you.