Therapy is a place to pause, reflect, and feel heard. It can help you understand what’s going on for you and support positive, lasting change in a way that feels safe and manageable.
Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is a collaborative approach that helps you understand patterns in your thoughts, feelings, and relationships. By making sense of where these patterns come from, CAT supports meaningful and lasting change.
Supervision at AS Therapy offers space to reflect, learn, and develop practice in a supportive and non-judgemental environment. Drawing on extensive experience in CAMHS and mental health services, support is shaped around the needs of individuals, teams, and organisations.
About Me
I'm Anna Spencer, the founder of AS Therapy. I’m an experienced Mental Health Nurse, Cognitive Analytic Therapist (CAT) and CAT Supervisor, with over 20 years’ experience working across the NHS and independent practice.
As a CAT therapist, I work collaboratively and with a down‑to‑earth, open approach. My style integrates understanding, compassion and practical change, helping people make sense of patterns that feel stuck, overwhelming or hard to shift. I have particular experience supporting young people, parents and those navigating the transition into adulthood — a stage where emotional, relational and identity challenges often come sharply into focus.
I am also an experienced CAT Supervisor, offering reflective, supportive supervision for therapists who want to deepen their practice, strengthen their skills and maintain their wellbeing.
I can offer both face‑to‑face appointments in Lincolnshire, or online sessions, giving you the flexibility to choose the setting that feels most comfortable and accessible.
Whether you are seeking therapy or professional CAT supervision, my aim is to create a safe, respectful space where insight, growth and meaningful change can take place.
Please contact me for a free half-hour consultation session.
Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is a time‑limited, collaborative approach that helps you understand patterns in your thoughts, feelings, behaviours and relationships.
CAT explores how these patterns may have developed in response to earlier experiences, and how they can continue to shape your life — often outside of awareness. Together, we identify unhelpful or repeating patterns, make sense of where they come from, and develop new ways of responding that feel safer, kinder and more supportive.
CAT is practical, compassionate and reflective. It offers both insight and tools, helping you recognise patterns as they happen and supporting meaningful, lasting change beyond therapy.
CAT can be helpful for difficulties such as:
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Anxiety and low mood
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Relationship challenges
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Self‑criticism and low self‑esteem
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Trauma and emotional distress
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Long‑standing or recurring patterns that feel hard to shift
Therapy is always shaped around you — your experiences, your pace and your individual needs
CAT Supervision
As a CAT supervisor with over 20 years of NHS experience across Adult Mental Health, Crisis Services, Children and Young People’s Mental Health, and Quality & Assurance roles, I am able to integrate robust risk management with relational understanding, offering a reflective, collaborative and safe supervisory space.
I am able to act as a senior supervisor within the ACAT Recognised Supervisor Training.
I provide CAT supervision for practitioners at all stages of their professional development — including trainees, recently qualified therapists and those wishing to deepen their CAT practice and theoretical understanding.
Supervision sessions are collaborative, supportive and appropriately challenging. I aim to create a space where supervisees can reflect openly on their work, including areas of uncertainty, difficulty and personal responses. Attention is given not only to client material but also to the supervisory relationship itself as a key learning tool.
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Sessions available online or in person (location dependent)
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Flexible frequency to meet individual needs
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Fees discussed on enquiry
“I have been in supervision with Anna for 3 years whilst completing the CAT practitioner training. I have to say that without her I would not have got this far. She is knowledgeable and very experienced in the use of CAT, and she uses her skills to help guide you with your clients. She fosters psychological safety within supervision so that you can be fully curious about your clients, the therapeutic space, and be open to challenge. Overall, she is a really lovely person, and I enjoy supervision immensely. I look forward to continuing meeting with her once I am a qualified practitioner.”
“Anna’s supervision has been (and still is) instrumental in my learning and growth within CAT. She has created a space that feels safe to reflect in and is attentive to my own ZPD - she knows when to push/challenge but always in a supportive way. She has also supported us to work as a group, allowing me to learn not just from the content that I bring, but also from that brought by others. I feel very grateful to be part of the group and would highly recommend her to others.”
