Table Of ContentTherapy with a map
A Cognitive Analytic Approach to Helping Relationships
© Steve Potter 2020
The author has asserted his rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act (1988) to be identified as the author of this work.
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Published 2020
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-912755-85-1
Pavilion Publishing and Media is a leading publisher of books, training
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Author: Steve Potter
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Printing: Severn Print
This book is magnificent. It is at the cutting edge of theory and practice
in Cognitive Analytic Therapy, introducing relational awareness and
developing concepts and tools for working therapeutically – with a map.
It stimulates thinking and deepens understanding of the relational impact
of trauma and the mechanisms from which healing occurs. What I also love
is that it can be used by a range of professionals, not just CAT practitioners,
across many settings. This book represents a tipping point for a new
approach to ‘helping relationships.’
Dr Siobain Bonfield: Discipline Senior Clinical Psychologist, Peninsula Health Mental
Health Service, Melbourne, Australia
Could there possibly be a more timely, prescient gift to the therapists,
counsellors and help providers than “Therapy with a Map”? Completed
in the time of lockdown and social distancing this is a passionate and
intellectually erudite expression of a yearning for a more relationally aware
world. Steve Potter has crafted an articulation and explanation of how
and why we must learn the art of being unsure and tolerating uncertainty
within our traumatised worlds, despite the pressures that work so forcibly
to demand more simplistic and reductionistic outcomes. This book offers
us an opportunity to embrace the paradigm shift towards a more dialogic
and relationally aware approach to working alongside others, whilst also
providing guidance on the essential tools that have emerged through
the field of Cognitive Analytic Therapy. For if we are to work towards a
meaningful offer that is more relational, from therapists, from services or
within society, then this book demonstrates, “It is easier with a map”.
Dr Nick Barnes: Honorary Senior Lecturer University College London
If you have ever curiously picked up a map, traced over the journey,
scribbled one down or had an ‘ah-ha’ moment of recognising where you
are, you’ll want to pick up this book too! Steve Potter takes us on a rich
journey in how you can map, understand, navigate and heal relational
patterns; whether you are new to this area or a practicing CAT therapist,
there is something in here for everyone – thought provoking, full of
practical ideas and beautifully written – an utterly welcome ‘how to’ map
and ‘what if’ book at a time when our world is reawakening and reaching
out to the importance of human connection and relationships for our
health and wellbeing.
Dr Lucy Cutler: Clinical Psychologist Jersey
Steve Potter has given us a gift: a “translation” of the (more) formal
concept of diagrams in Cognitive Analytic Therapy into a more colloquial
and collaborative shared creation. He invites us into a dance of exploration
as he describes the simplicity and the profound depths which mapping can
bring to light. He shows us that wherever two or more people are gathered
in therapy, supervision teams, families and any organisations, mapping
can enhance the understanding and the experience of what it means to be
in relationship.
Annalee Curran: Founder member of ACAT
“Therapy with a map” is a fascinating journey into the depths of relation
awareness and an excellent symphony of discoveries for both therapist
and client. Steve’s outstanding orchestration of therapeutic possibilities
gives the reader a most insightful and innovative mapping tool, paving the
way to a better society with a deeper understanding of ourselves and what
surrounds us.
Alexandra Dariescu, concert pianist
An extraordinary tool for professionals to support clients retelling their
stories and repairing relational signatures and journeys.
Dr Filipa Alves-Costa, Forensic Psychologist, PhD
Contents
Contents .............................................................................................v
Foreword ..........................................................................................vii
Preface and acknowledgements .........................................................ix
About the author ...............................................................................xi
Introduction and overview ...................................................................1
Part 1: How to map ......................................................................17
Chapter 1: Conversational mapping ...................................................19
Chapter 2: Relationship mapping .......................................................37
Chapter 3: Narrative mapping ...........................................................65
Chapter 4: Process mapping ..............................................................83
Chapter 5: Learning to map and talk .................................................103
Chapter 6: Writing and the therapeutic voice .....................................115
Part 2: Relational awareness and relational trauma ...................131
Chapter 7: Relational awareness ......................................................133
Chapter 8: Relational healing ...........................................................157
Part 3: CAT therapy with a map: beginning, middle and the end 171
Chapter 9: Beginning therapy ..........................................................173
Chapter 10: What to do in the middle of therapy ...............................199
Chapter 11: Ending therapy ...............................................................219
References ......................................................................................237
Foreword
This impressive book by Steve Potter should become one of the practical
and conceptual pillars of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) and of relational
approaches to human psychological distress and suffering. It is deeply
thoughtful but also imbued with an evident warmth and reads effortlessly.
The book represents, distils, and articulates the therapeutic wisdom
and expertise of a lifetime of deep thinking and therapeutic experience
by its author. Throughout it is also characteristically and relevantly, for
good theoretical and clinical reasons, imbued with the humanistic and
compassionate stance and style by which Steve has been known and
valued by generations of trainee therapists, colleagues, and, I have no
doubt, the clients with whom he has worked over many years. Indeed, this
compassionate, curious and genuinely collaborative therapeutic stance is
central and critical to the approach he describes and explores. The book
conveys all this with a stylistically-understated but apparently effortless
mastery – I was reminded of a ‘master chef’ type presentation! – of the
therapeutic challenges and importance of relationality as the key defining
factor and critical underpinning of human life, activity and well-being.
It should be noted, in an era of increasing commodification and
‘technologisation’ of most (Western) mental health services with their
predominant, but unfounded, focus on endogenous individual and internal
‘technical’ dysfunction, whether cognitive or biomedical, that the evidence
in fact unequivocally supports the view that mental health and well-being,
and subsequently mental distress and disorder and their outcomes, are
predominantly determined by relational and socio-political factors, both
developmental and contextual. This assertion stands notwithstanding
possible individual genetic and/or neurobiological variation and
vulnerability. And the latter may frequently, as we increasingly understand,
actually be caused by relational adversity. In this context this volume will
therefore be an essential and supportive companion to those undertaking
more relational forms of therapy, and will also act as a counterweight to
the sometimes more mechanically-prescriptive ways in which even these
are sometimes, in our day and age, taught and undertaken. This may
seem paradoxical given that on the face of it the book concerns use of a
‘technique’; but the key consideration is the manner and relational context
this is engaged in and how it is undertaken.
In articulating his approach and in considering its theoretical basis Steve has
developed fresh perspectives and advances key aspects of the CAT model
developed by Anthony Ryle, around which the book devolves and develops.
But he also acknowledges, discusses and makes creative use of a wide
range of other writers and authorities. Ryle too incidentally always stressed
that effective (relationally based) therapy could never simply be about
vii
assembling and administering a range of techniques nor ‘manualising’ them
in strict order or detail. This does not mean of course that therapy should
simply be an ‘intuitive’ venture or that outcomes should not be properly
evaluated somehow – problematic as this is for obvious reasons – as Ryle
also insisted. However, this is not the focus of this volume.
But although this is not a formal ‘how to’ or manualised technical book
on therapy, it is full of practical wisdom and helpful tips for both trainees
and experts, notably around its central focus on the importance and use
of mapping, actually in a theoretically ‘virtual’ sense as well as literally,
as a means of connecting, meaning-making, assisting people to move on
fruitfully, and healing. Notably, as Steve and others describe, this can also
apply more systemically and ‘contextually’, beyond individual therapy, to
staff teams, care-givers, families, organisations, and to the broader socio-
political context.
For those of us working in this field the book will be not only informative
and thought-provoking but also reassuring and supportive, both clinically and
personally, as I can testify from my own reading of it. It is a rich resource that
will not easily be digested in one reading but will repay and reward repeated
visits. As such it will be a resource for psychotherapy practitioners, teachers
and supervisors, both in CAT and beyond, and also for non-specialists. It will
also potentially be a helpful resource for those perhaps struggling themselves
with many of the issues described, or with overt mental distress and disorder.
Those who have been taught by or heard Steve lecture over the years will
been aware of his broad repertoire of understanding and thoughtfulness, of
his energy and commitment, and also of his innovative and uniquely personal
linguistic and therapeutic insights. The book embodies all of these and also
clearly benefits from his extensive experience in teaching and training in
a variety of different cultural settings around the world. Addressing work
in such diverse settings remains an important ‘meta-challenge’ to current
models of therapy, although hopefully the more culturally sensitive CAT-
based approaches described here and elsewhere should be able to make a
helpful contribution. Few however may have been aware of the depth of
background study, thinking, and vision underpinning his presentations and it
is good to see all this brought together. It has clearly been a long while in the
maturing and in the end rather quicker in the blending – as makers of fine
whiskies would advocate. On a more personal note, and having spent quite
a bit of time working together with Steve over the years in various contexts
and in joint ‘constructive dithering’ as he might put it, it is a great pleasure
and satisfaction to see this volume coming together and finally appearing.
I commend it wholeheartedly.
Ian B. Kerr
Whangarei, NZ-Aotearoa, June 2020.
viii
Preface and
acknowledgements
Therapy is a shared experience. This book carries within it the voices of
many clients and colleagues. Over the past four decades, I have had the
privilege of working with people from all over the world and taught in a
dozen different countries. I am writing to honour and celebrate the shared
experience of client and therapist working side-by-side mapping out the
patterns of interaction from the conversations which we are having and the
life stories that are being remembered, retold and revised. All the stories of
therapy in practice are entirely fictionalised but I hope have fidelity to the
reality of therapy as I have learnt it from clients and colleagues.
This is not directly a book about a model of therapy. It is an offer to people
in the helping professions to consider adding something to their work
in the form of the skill of therapeutic mapping. In the process it shows
the principles and practice of Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) in the
author’s view. It presents CAT as a versatile therapy which can work with
other approaches and is itself an integration of psychoanalytic, cognitive,
narrative and systemic ways of working. Specifically, the book applies the
conceptual tools of CAT diagrams and shows the activity of mapping as a
therapeutic process.
The final editing of this book was done during the lock down and social
distancing of the coronavirus pandemic. The talk then alongside so much
uncertainty and loss, was of the ‘new normal’, globally and locally, which
we would face once the spread of the virus was understood and managed.
The ‘new normal’ pointed to many things, but one theme (hopefully
explored in this book) was a greater relational awareness of each other and
the social, economic and natural world within, between and around us.
My thanks for helping with this book go to a great many people. Foremost
are those who have been clients and struggled with me to make sense of
distress and find ways to talk about, map out and reshape lives. Also, warm
thanks go to the very many groups of trainees, from all disciplines in the NHS
and similar health settings internationally. The ideas described here have
been crafted through running the ‘Introduction to CAT’ course with Annalee
Curran in London over the past 19 years, and through three intakes of the
Inter Regional Psychotherapy course with Hilary Beard, also many years of
productive work as colleagues with CAT North/Catalyse and other practitioner
trainings for CAT around the UK, and more recently the practitioner training in
Jersey. They have been my conversational partners as trainers.
ix
Preface and acknowledgements
Thanks also to many groups and networks of practitioners: Iannis Vlachos
and colleagues in Greece and the Hellenic CAT association, Marie Anne
Bernardy in France, and colleagues in the CAT communities in Finland,
Australia and New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, Holland and Spain. Thanks also
to the network of Forensic CAT practitioners in the UK and especially to
the multi-disciplinary group led by Nicola Kemp, Alison Bickerdike, Clare
Bingham at the John Howard Centre. Thanks to working side-by-side over
the years with the communities and groups of the Association for Cognitive
Analytic Therapy in the UK. I have valued the open dialogue with ideas
with Francis Creighton, Jenny Marshall, Jamie Kirkland, Rob Lam and
Lucy Cutler.
This book would not have been completed without the sustained,
motivational push from Anna Haigh to put my teaching and bits of writing
together in a book. Anna helped greatly in the early stages and our shared
interest in CAT as a co-creative therapy and helped me search for a writing
style. Anna specifically helped in discussion of part three of the book. Many
thanks also to coaching in the art of writing from N. Quentin Woolf and
his skilful stewardship of the weekly meetings of the writing group at the
Brick Lane Bookshop. Thank you to Ian Kerr as editing partner through
three issues of the international Journal of Cognitive Analytic Therapy and
Relational Mental Health. He has been a long-standing friend and wise voice.
Anthony Ryle developed the integrative and relational language, concepts
and tools of CAT over 30 years. In the process he created something radically
new, flexible and creative that is still ahead of its time. In the same spirit
he brought people together as therapists from a wide mix of the mental
health professions. His approach allowed the pieces of the psychotherapy
jigsaw puzzle to be put together in a new way and left open borders for new
pieces to be added. I hope he would have appreciated this book as one such
small addition.
Thanks, above all, to my children and grandchildren for providing an endless
source of love and relational awareness, and to Catherine, my inspiring
partner for over 40 years.
Steve Potter, London
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