How individual therapy can help your relationships 

We usually think that if we want to work on better understanding our relationships, the only answer is couple’s therapy or family therapy and although it can be super effective, just the thought of it sends shivers down some people’s spine. Your [insert partner, child, parent, significant person] would not even entertain the idea. 

Maybe you’ve noticed patterns that seem to always happen when you get into new relationships or friendships. You don’t understand how you end up with the same type of person over and over again.

Maybe you have family members that you love, dearly, but maintaining a relationship with them can be incredibly hard work. And you don’t want to lose them, but you also don’t know how to keep a relationship with them without feeling like you’re losing your mind.  

Maybe you’ve given up on relationships altogether. Maybe you don’t want to be around people, at all. They just disappoint you. You’re done. (Or at least you tell yourself you’re done, but then you see people looking happy and you don’t understand why it looks so easy for them). Or sometimes, late at night, you just wonder what it would be like to find someone who doesn’t disappoint you. 

The truth is, we are always in some kind of relationship. Whether that’s romantic relationships, friendships, how we get on with our work colleagues, random people in supermarkets, people on the internet... We are always interacting with people in some way. 

We also have a relationship with ourselves. 

I know that could sound like the ‘you are your own first love’ cheesy stuff you see on the internet. But how we interact with ourselves is really important. What is the first thing we tell ourselves when we make a silly mistake? How do we treat ourselves when we’re hurt? (Do we give ourselves time to recover, put a plaster on, nurse the wound... OR do we tell ourselves to stop making such a fuss and just get on with it..).

Life can be hard work when our relationship with ourselves is exhausting. 

Introducing CAT (Cognitive Analytic Therapy)

CAT brings together principles from CBT (the well-known Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and psychoanalytic approaches; hence Cognitive Analytic. However, without getting into too much of the science behind it (if you’re interested, the Association of Cognitive Analytic Therapy has loads of more specific information), CAT is known for its focus on working with individuals to better understand patterns in relationships. 

I love using CAT principles in my therapy, as it is such a useful framework for exploring relationships without the other people having to be in the room (or hearing what you’re saying... so you can be really honest). 

CAT is based on the idea that throughout our lives, we develop ‘patterns’ around how we interact with other people, and how we treat ourselves. These patterns often come from previous relationships (for example, if our parents were very protective of us, we may have learnt to also be protective of other people, and act in ways to protect ourselves… OR we could be the complete opposite and want to push away from that protection). 

We often find ourselves, unknowingly, spending time with people who also have similar patterns (for example, keeping with the protective theme, this could invite other people to constantly rely on us to look after them, OR we might find that our adult relationships are also over-protective and smothering.). Of course, we cannot MAKE others behave in a certain way, but we can find ourselves curiously pulled towards the same sorts of people and replicate the same sorts of dynamics. 

We sometimes refer to this as a ‘dance’ as if two peoples’ relational patterns are trying to figure out a way of being together (I know, I said I wasn’t going to be cheesy…). To put this in very simple terms, our relationship patters inform:

• What we do to others
• What we expect from others
• What we do to ourselves 

If you start CAT therapy, the first stages of the therapy are spent trying to recognise these patterns. This can sometimes take time, as often these patterns are things that we just automatically do, without really thinking about.

How CAT can help us to change our relationships

Once we have started to recognise which relationship patterns cause us the most difficulties, we can start to explore some ‘exits’ from these patterns. Please remember you probably also have loads of patterns that also work really well for you, but why would you want therapy for something that is already working?

Exits are different ways of responding to things, that can lead to a different result. Once we have outlined the type of patterns that we want to change, we can start to notice these happening in-the-moment and start to change our responses to them. This doesn’t mean we have to cut off from all our relationships as we know them, in fact it can often be the opposite. We just start to respond to these patterns in a different way, that can lead to different outcomes. A lot of people report mutually better relationships as result of this.

Now, this can take time. And it involves some experimenting. It’s about trying different things, seeing how they work, and then maybe trying something else. But you and your therapist work together to explore what feels possible for you, in that moment. Sometimes it’s the littlest changes that have the most dramatic impact.

Your therapist and you...

The pretty smart thing about this type of therapy is that it acknowledges that your interaction with your therapist is also a relationship. So you get safe space to try out this new stuff out with them, before you take it anywhere else, so you get to see how it feels, and mess up as you need to, with zero judgement.

If you’re interested in this kind of work, you are more than welcome to reach out to me, either if you think you would benefit from us working together, or if you would like an initial meeting to talk it through. The good thing is, there’s no commitment. You’re welcome to book into one or two sessions, and see how it fits, before committing to anything longer term. 

The most important thing to remember is that you don’t need other people to commit to therapy for you to work on your relationships; as long as you’re ready to commit yourself. 

Warmest,

Leanne