The Client Experiences of LGBQ Affirmative Therapy Scale (CATS) is a 21-Item scale that allows lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer consumers of counseling and therapy to provide feedback about whether their service provider was affirming of them. This scale is free to use for any researchers or mental health professionals that want to use this to improve services for the LGBQ+ community.
You can access a copy of the paper and pencil version of the scale at this link:
Scoring: Values for each item range from 0 (Never) to 5 (Always). The score is a simple summation of the answers with higher scores indicating higher levels of affirmative practice.
The preliminary validation study is published at: O’Shaughnessy, T. (2025). Preliminary Validation of the Client Experiences of LGBQ Affirmative Therapy (CATS) Scale. Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling, 19(2), 216–227. https://doi.org/10.1080/26924951.2025.2471750