NZCAT are a group of practitioners working together to provide information and training in CAT for New Zealanders. Our aim is to provide a platform for communication, collaboration and training for any health professional interested in CAT.  In addition, as practitioners, we also provide CAT therapy within private practice and DHB settings

CAT has been established in New Zealand since 2005 following a series of introductory CAT workshops  This was followed by intensive trainings for staff working in inpatient mental health teams,  training to primary care managers and GP’s using a CAT approach to formulation and conference presentations in the field of personality disorder.  

Interest in CAT training in New Zealand continued to grow and several clinicians have continued to develop their clinical skills in CAT through ongoing CAT supervision. “CAT tourism” also hit New Zealand shores, with overseas therapists and trainers offering workshops, training and CAT therapies. December 2010 saw the launch of the first NZ CAT skills training course in Auckland.

 

Over the past few years interest in CAT in NZ has remained strong and additional CAT trained practitioners from overseas have joined the growing CAT community in NZ.  Together, they have continued to provide training in CAT through offering 2-day introductory courses to mental health professionals, teaching modules for clinical psychology trainees, and workshops for interested clinicians such as tertiary student counselling teams and psychiatry.  We have continued to have overseas CAT practitioners and trainers offer training opportunities.

 

CAT training in New Zealand:

In October 2015, we had the first intake of our practitioner training. The practitioner training in NZ is split in to Part One and Part Two. Each part runs over two years, meaning that it takes four years of part-time study to become an accredited CAT Practitioner. Practitioner training in NZ involves face to face and online seminars, written assignments, reading, and supervised case work. We have now had the first of our trainees qualify with the remaining trainees from the initial cohort due to complete their training soon. A further Part One practitioner training commenced in 2018. We hope to have another Part One intake soon.

There are training seminars offered by both national and international speakers for those who are ‘CAT interested” as well as those in the training program. We try to run a 2 day “Intro to CAT” training annually and this has proved to be very popular. We have set up a national database of those interested in CAT and anyone can be on the database and receive information about upcoming training opportunities.

 

 

Making contact:

We have CAT accredited practitioners in all the major NZ cities (Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland) and there are five accredited CAT supervisors also available. For further information, please visit the NZCAT website at: www.nzcat.nz