Attending to later life: A CAT approach to working with the legacy of complex trauma (Khan, 2024)

Catlin Paul Khan Ellen Hamill Michelle. 

Oxford handbook of cognitive analytic therapy 2024; 590-603, 949 Pages. 

Available online at this link 

This chapter offers a brief overview of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) and later life and outlines the long-term effects of early trauma. Then, through co-production and drawing on clinical material, it illustrates how CAT sensitively conceptualizes and attends to the long-term effects of past trauma persisting into later life and the re-emergence of early trauma when caring for a relative with dementia. Often, when working with older people, early trauma has never been spoken about because of the generational values of 'just getting on with things'. CAT's lifespan and intergenerational approach can facilitate the understanding of emotional difficulties in later life and offers an alternative of attending to, rather than overlooking, feelings to better manage distress. In terms of the relationships between carer and cared for in dementia, CAT helps to provide a therapeutic space to make sense of relationship patterns in the context of carers' lives and reduce the risk of re-enactment of limiting or harmful relational patterns—within and between the carer, person with dementia, and wider society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)