INTRODUCING COGNITIVE ANALYTIC THERAPY

Anthony Ryle qualified in medicine in 1949 and worked successively as a
founding member of an inner city group practice, in Kentish Town, London, as
Director of Sussex University Health Service and as a Consultant
Psychotherapist at St Thomas’s Hospital, London. Since retiring from the NHS
he has worked part-time in teaching and research at Guy’s Hospital. While in
general practice he carried out epidemiological studies of the patients under his
care and the experience of demonstrating the high prevalence and family associations
of psychological distress influenced his subsequent interest in the
development of forms of psychological treatment which could realistically be
provided in the NHS. Studies of the process and outcome of psychotherapy
followed and from these grew the elaboration of an integrated psychotherapy
theory and the development of the time-limited model of treatment which
became cognitive analytic therapy.