Recent posts
Redman. K, 2022. Book Reviews: Therapy with a Map, Reformulation 55, p.46
Title: Therapy with a map A cognitive analytic approach to helping relationships
Publisher: Pavillion Publishing
Year: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-912755-85-1
Who hasn’t felt daunted when learning to map? I remember when I started out in CAT and mapping out the client’s story was a daunting process. Therapy with a map will help you through the process of learning how to map as well as helping you to have a richer appreciation of cognitive analytic therapy as a whole.
The title of the book is simple, but this is detailed work, with new theoretical concepts to think about as well as lots of helpful practical and creative ideas for your use in practice. It explores the art of mapping within its narrative and relational terrain. It is the result of over four decades of Steve Potter’s thinking, teaching, working and therapeutic experience as one of the key developers of Cognitive Analytic Therapy.
Steve Potter is a UKCP registered psychotherapist, based in London who has taught and supervised work with individuals, teams and organisations. He is interested in studying the patterns of relationships between people and uses maps drawn out collaboratively with people to understand these patterns and how this process can help us understand the experiences that people have.
The book is organised into three parts. Part 1 explains how to map. Steve Potter deconstructs what we are doing when we are jointly mapping the client’s story. He does this by developing our CAT language for what we are doing when we are mapping. ‘Constructive dithering’ sounds paradoxical, but it refers to the process of what therapists and clients do when they revise and recap, during a process of joint mapping. The art of constructive dithering happens when client and therapist hover – for example, taking a bird’s eye view, between different points of view and shimmering- being able to tolerate and sit alongside strong or differing emotions.
Throughout, the importance of a collaborative approach is emphasised. It is freeing to read about ‘messy maps’- this is part of our work and these can be re-drawn or re-worked on jointly together as part of a helpful therapeutic process.
Therapy with a map will appeal to anyone who wants to enrich the therapy they offer but who need some creative ideas as well as theoretical knowledge. The first part of the book has many ideas for applying to therapeutic work with clients. For anyone who has moments where they get stuck with what is the reciprocal role going on here? the book explains this by getting you to think about doing words (the top role) and feeling words (the bottom role). I enjoyed the exercises to help develop mapping skills- particularly with the map template of Hide and seek with hopes and fears. I tried this on myself as part of a reflective practice exercise and found it helpful as it does get you to think and then think again about your situation. I can see it being a useful tool to use as part of supervision or within a mentor relationship.
There is a detailed consideration of a narrative approach. Many people who are familiar with Steve Potter’s work will have heard about dog stories- those well-rehearsed stories that somehow don’t really illuminate us or tell us the full picture; the stories that we might tell a passer-by we meet when walking the dog. Steve Potter expands on this by helping us to recognise different types of stories that we may encounter in the therapy process. I particularly liked his example of the difference between epic stories (for example, of Homer’s classic Iliad) compared with novelistic stories (he contrasts the former with Pat Barker’s 2018 publication, The silence of the girls). The Iliad tells us the story of the siege of Troy, whereas Pat Barker’s book tells us this story from the perspective of the women who lived through that time. Their stories were not present in The Iliad, because they were not considered central or important at that historical time; the male perspective being the dominant narrative. The contrasting genres of stories illustrate the different kinds of stories that can be told in the therapy room. They can be one dimensional or from one perspective or they can contain multiple experiences and realities.
By helping us to develop a more nuanced and subtle awareness of different types of stories, Steve Potter is helping us to develop a multi-faceted level of awareness- when you have a new name for something, you can much more easily spot it! This part of his theory is developed further in part 2. The key idea here is that an orchestral awareness (i.e. a multi-faceted awareness and being in dialogue with ideas) can be the key towards developing a more therapeutic sense of self and ultimately, emotional healing.
Part 3 of the book takes us through the beginning, middle and end phases of CAT. This part of the book has a practical focus as well as discussing common problems that the therapist might encounter. I can see myself dipping into these chapters again, as there is a lot of good advice. I appreciated some of the suggestions for working with endings and ending letters and will be keen to try these with clients. For example, I think my work with clients could benefit from discussing the ending letters more and how we might approach these. I also liked the idea of incorporating more writing with clients and using this creatively throughout the process of therapy.
Therapy with a map is definitely a book that you will want to read if you would like to enrich your understanding of mapping in CAT and CAT in general. It will appeal to a wide audience from therapy practitioners, supervisors, teachers and friends interested in the complexity of human relationships.
I will be keeping my copy close to hand on my desk to dip into some more and to try out some of the exercises with my clients.
Kate Redman
KateRedman@icloud.com
More information (Steve Potter)
https://www.mapandtalk.com