​With over 40 years of experience, Dr Peter Jakob is a highly qualified clinical psychologist specialising in child and adolescent mental health, as well as adult mental health. He has extensive experience in child protection and works with issues such as:
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Harmful and self-destructive child- and adolescent behaviour
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All forms of child abuse, neglect, and trauma
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Parental mental health and substance misuse
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Domestic abuse and its psychological impact
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Dr Jakob provides a wide range of therapeutic approaches, bringing together such ways of working as NVR (nonviolent resistance therapy and practice), systemic therapy, solution-focused and narrative therapy and CBT.
He focuses on improving family dynamics and addressing mental health challenges that are often seen as particularly complex.
My Background
With a deep interest in the ‘larger system’ around the family, strengthening community support, and the role of helping agencies, I have focused on creating effective, collaborative outcomes for families facing severe challenges.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I developed the Thanet Multi Agency Service (TMS) and led a large child psychology department within the NHS. My team provided essential psychological interventions to families involved with local authorities, addressing behavioural, emotional, and mental health issues. As lead clinician, I promoted high standards of multi-agency collaboration and introduced innovative therapeutic approaches.
My final NHS role was as CAMHS Lead for Complex Cases in East Sussex, where I oversaw treatment for children and adolescents with complex mental health needs.
I also focus on training and supervising professionals in therapeutic approaches for children, families, and parents, particularly where there has been severe trauma. I introduced Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) Therapy and Practice to the UK, integrating it with Solution-Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and trauma-informed approaches through PartnershipProjects, which I directed for many years.
Currently, I’ve returned to private practice under the name Progressive Psychology and am developing a new service, Connective Strength, alongside my colleague Kerry Shoesmith at Cherry Lane Therapeutic Services.
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.
