Hayden Stothard

Therapy is about talking with a trusted person to think about what troubles you in your life and why it always feels as though history repeats itself.

Whether that is with your work, friendships or romantic interests (or all of them), getting caught up in patterns of relating and behaving make starting afresh or doing something differently, really hard to do.

I often tell my patients that until you notice something about yourself, you cannot change it. It's my job as your therapist to help you notice these patterns and to start making changes in your life.

I support you to do this by offering Cognitive Analytic Therapy (sometimes called CAT Therapy) which happens once a week for a total of 16 or 24 sessions.

What makes CAT different?

During therapy, we will work together to create your map, a shared document that we use to draw out your relational patterns. You can then use this in between sessions to increase your awareness and work on your goals.

I will also write a Reformulation letter to you within the first 6 weeks that I will read  to you. This letter will include some of your history and how it ties into the goals that we have identified for your therapy.

Finally, at the end of therapy, I will read you your goodbye letter in which I have outlined what we have achieved during your sessions and what you might wish to continue working on in the future. 

These are all tools that you can then refer back to in the future once therapy is finished. 

Why chose a time limited therapy?

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is offered as either 16 or 24 sessions. We decide the total number of sessions together around the time of your Reformulation letter once we have explored a bit more of your history.

One of the reasons behind limiting the number of sessions is that it helps keep the momentum of therapy going. There is a potential to put things off when something is open-ended, so by counting the sessions, it encourages you to try out new ways of relating while you have the support of me as your therapist.

In CAT, we also offer follow up sessions, that clients usually access around a month after their final session. This gives you the opportunity to reflect on how it has been since ending therapy and ask any clarifying questions or make a plan for anything you might need in the future. 

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is an integrative model and at times, it may be helpful for us to use selected techniques or approaches from other therapeutic models. 

Though I don't offer these as standalone therapies, in addition to my CAT training, I am also qualified in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and I'm well versed in offering Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) informed interventions. 

My ethos is to charge fairly and in doing so, to provide quality therapy over quantity.  I achieve this by intentionally limiting the number of clients that I will work with at one time, to make sure that I can hold your story in my mind fully. 

I will be available to assess suitability prior to these dates, however future regular therapy slots will be the following:

• Monday evening after 5pm (1 slot available from the 29th April 2024)
• Monday afternoon before 5pm (1 slot available April 2024)
• Thursday morning (1 slot available from 28th March 2024)

I always recommend that we arrange an initial telephone call (up to 15 minutes) for you to get a sense of me and if CAT sounds like a good fit. 

You can book a free call with me directly using the following link https://tidycal.com/learnwithcato/individual-therapy

I usually work with adults, either online or face-to-face. 

Cognitive Analytic Therapy is a trans-diagnostic therapy, which means it can effectively be used with any presentation, so this list is not exhaustive, but I do have some particular areas of clinical interest in which I apply CAT;

• ​Autism
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Experience of childhood trauma
• Narcissism
• Parents/Carers
• Professional development and entrepreneurism