Dr Peter Jakob
I have been working in child and adolescent mental health and in adult mental health as a qualified clinical psychologist for over 40 years. Much of this work has been undertaken in support of child protection, involving difficulties relating to child sexual and physical abuse or neglect, parents’ mental ill health, as well as drug and alcohol misuse problems, domestic violence, and very serious trauma.
After my training as a clinical psychologist, I went on to train as a systemic family therapist.
My Background
Over the years, I have pursued a strong interest in the ‘larger system’: processes between family, wider family, community and the helping agencies that can be decisive for good outcomes.
​
In the late 1990's and early two thousands, I developed ‘Thanet Multi Agency Service’ (TMS), as well as leading a large child psychology department within the NHS. This team provided comprehensive psychological interventions to families involved with the local authority, responding to behavioural, psychological, emotional and mental health issues which families that were facing multiple challenges were struggling with. As its lead clinician, I promoted not only a high standard of therapeutic competence and multi-agency working at close range, but also introduced a number of innovative therapeutic approaches to this area of work. My last position in the NHS was CAMHS Lead for Complex Cases East Sussex.
My work focuses not only on working with families, but also on training other professionals in approaches that are helpful for young people, their parents and families, especially where there has been severe trauma. Having introduced Non Violent Resistance Practice and Therapy to the UK and integrating it with Solution-focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy and trauma-informed ways of working, I spread this way of working through PartnershipProjects, of which I was the director for many years.
Recently, I have gone back into private practice, firming under the name of Progressive Psychology. I am also currently developing a new service and training agency together with my colleague Kerry Shoesmith, which we are calling “Connective Strength”.
How I Work
As a therapist, I find working collaboratively with people more effective than ‘treatment’. While drawing from a large ‘toolbox’ of methods, I aim to help clients recognise and use their own strengths, resources and knowledge. Over the years, it has been my task to create space for discovering new possibilities when people have felt extremely helpless at the outset.
The hope and self-confidence they gain then becomes the vehicle for change, which can often be much more rapid and profound than previously expected. I do not believe that personalities are set in stone. Childhood is short, and as adults we begin to realise that life is finite. This creates a responsibility for me: to be acutely aware of my clients’ right to therapy which promotes rapid change, and in which their own knowledge is respected – even, or especially, when they have had an abusive or traumatising past.
