Hello and welcome

If you're looking for a counsellor or psychotherapist in or around Bradford, West Yorkshire – whether for yourself or someone you care about – then this site will interest you.

This page is about me and my work as a therapist – my qualifications, experience and limitations, plus bits of background information (click on the underlined links*) and opinion. I hope it gives you some idea of my approach to people and their concerns. The second page is about coaching and other professional development services for individuals and organisations wanting to 'be the best' at what they do.

Have a read. If you want to know more, you're welcome to contact me by phone, mobile (including by text) or email. You can be sure that your enquiry will be dealt with in strict confidence.

Robert Jenkins

Phone: 01274 491471

Mobile: 07762 266800

Email: info (at) dedicated.org.uk

*Disclaimer: Links to external sites are offered in good faith for information only. No endorsement is implied, nor responsibility accepted for their content.

what talking therapies are

Talking therapies such as counselling and psychotherapy are professional forms of helpful dialogue. Therapy offers a confidential and supportive space in which life problems (examples below) may be sensitively and effectively addressed. The working relationship co-created by practitioner and client helps generate the optimum psychological conditions in which beneficial change can be effected. In essence, therapy acts as the catalyst for this change.

Broadly speaking, counselling focuses on problems in life, psychotherapy on problems with life.

Counselling

If you've been affected by recent stressful events or circumstances, counselling can help you strengthen your coping strategies, recover your ability to respond more creatively and calmly to your situation and find suitable solutions. It may be offered for between five and twenty weekly sessions over two to four months. Most people begin to notice a positive difference within a couple of sessions.

Psychotherapy

If you've been troubled over the longer term by ways of thinking or feeling, beliefs or behaviours that keep making life frustrating or unfulfilling for you, then psychotherapy can help you explore how these may stem from your responses to childhood difficulties or crises, then apply your 'grown-up' understanding to resolving them. By revisiting early life decisions and updating them in line with your current needs and values, it can help you further develop your natural resilience to adversity, and ultimately to take charge of how you live your life.

Most people bring to therapy some combination of these two types of life problem, discovering as they address them and find their own solutions that the problem-solving and developmental aspects of therapy go hand in hand.

Relationship Counselling

For couples, counselling can help raise awareness of what each of you is giving and getting in your relationship (or not), of how you've each changed since you got together and why, and how you might still need to change so that you each get more of what you want from each other and less of what you don't.

what talking therapies are not

GPs may refer their patients, or employers may "recommend" that an employee should "go for counselling". And since talking therapies like counselling are offered on the NHS, many people have come to think of them as "treatments" that have been "prescribed" for whatever is "wrong". They are not treatments. They are opportunities to talk in confidence and without pressure or judgement with a specially trained professional about problems in and of one's life. And to find solutions. Or not. As the client decides.

It's true that various medical problems typically co-occur with anxiety, stress or depression, and that either or both of these types of health issue may well be addressed by talking therapies. But this doesn't make those therapies 'health interventions' or 'medical procedures' like injections or surgery.

Medical approaches involve a diagnosis of symptoms and the prescription of a treatment to alleviate them. Talking therapies are different. They involve setting up a trustful working alliance – co-created by both parties to the therapeutic contract – in which it's the process overall  that 'works' for the client rather than any particular aspect of that process. Studies of different types of talking therapy have consistently shown that specific 'ingredients' of a particular therapy contribute to at most 8% of the outcome, whereas factors common to all talking therapies – especially the quality of the practitioner-client relationship – account for at least 70%. Therefore, to think of talking therapy as a kind of medicine with specific 'procedures' can be misleading. Moreover, to measure its effectiveness in the same way as that of drugs can lead to serious distortions.

talking therapies in the nhs

Sadly, such distortions have now found their way into the NHS. NICE, the body which evaluates medicines and other NHS treatments, has concluded that the more a psychological therapy goes 'by the book', the more likely it is to show certain desired effects, and hence to receive funding. This is because NICE favours trials of therapies which mimic those commonly applied to drugs, while attaching less importance to a much larger (though less quantitative) evidence base for therapy effectiveness. A notable result of this bias is that Manualised Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has become the NICE 'therapy of choice'. As there aren't enough qualified and experienced CBT practitioners, the NHS is re-training qualified and experienced practitioners of non-CBT therapies (like counselling and psychotherapy), hiring less experienced practitioners to cover their absence, and training staff with neither qualifications nor experience in therapy to offer 'low-level' CBT. This strategy is not only highly disruptive of services to NHS patients but also hugely wasteful of existing resources. The government calls this Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. Many experienced NHS counsellors and GPs see it as yet more top-down interference with what was an already well-functioning service. The most likely result in the short to medium term will be longer waiting lists, less choice and lower quality – and all at vastly increased cost to the taxpayer.

what i offer

For individual clients, I offer therapeutic help in discovering their own solutions to a wide range of personal issues and emotional or psychological difficulties. Examples include:

♦relationships ♦stress ♦bereavement and loss ♦depression ♦anxiety ♦panic ♦parenting ♦assertiveness ♦post-traumatic stress ♦anger ♦low self-esteem or motivation ♦men’s issues ♦bullying and harassment ♦childhood abuse ♦mid-life crisis ♦sexual orientation ♦work/career issues ♦addictions ... among others

I offer clearly contracted-for and focused therapy over the short to medium term according to client need and commitment. Sessions last one hour and are offered on a weekly basis. Apart from evening sessions [4.30 - 8.00pm] which are heavily subscribed, I can usually offer a lot of flexibility as to day and time.

For couples, I offer relationship counselling.

Please note – to ensure mutual protection my therapy services are offered within a strict code of confidentiality, which may only be breached when serious harm to self or others could not otherwise be prevented.

where i work

I am based in Little Germany, Bradford's central business district, just a few minutes' walk from either of Bradford's train stations, Forster Square or the Interchange. Access by car is easy from the A647 Leeds Road, the A650 Shipley Airedale Road or the A658 Barkerend Road. Parking is available nearby. (Click here for a map.)

My first floor office is a well-appointed and welcoming space, offering safety and privacy. There's no receptionist and no mixing with strangers in a waiting room. Appointments are timed so that you can be seen as soon as you arrive.

how i work

My approach to therapy is:

► collaborative – working with you and your difficulties, not on you

► holistic – taking the whole person into account: mind, body, spirit

► integrative – drawing as needed on what the evidence has shown to underlie all successful therapies

► educative – facilitating new insights and learnings

I draw largely but not exclusively on Transactional Analysis, a systematic approach to personal development offering highly accessible models for better understanding ourselves and others, solving problems, changing and growing. I use TA as a framework for integrating a range of psychotherapeutic ideas and methods. It's based on the following principles:

► everyone is unique, has intrinsic worth, can think, decide (and re-decide) their own destiny, change and grow

► the key to a person's present and future development lies in what sense they have made of their lived experience

► emotional wellbeing can be enhanced by increasing awareness of human needs, resources and values

TA therapy is very user-friendly, building a trustful client-practitioner relationship through clear, respectful and empathic communication while focusing throughout on the client's needs. It's also solution-focused. Client and practitioner together decide on goals and how to attain them, thus aiming to use no more sessions than necessary.

[Those interested in comparing TA therapy to CBT may like to note that in essence it's a cognitive-behavioural therapy. The main difference is that TA has the potential to be more flexible and relational than the more manualised types of CBT.]

training and qualifications

I'm confident I can help to make a positive difference for everyone I agree to work with in therapy. Read what former clients have said about me and my approach:

choosing a therapist

It's gratifying to know that my contribution has benefited the vast majority of those who have sought my help. However, I do not pretend that everyone has left entirely satisfied. No practitioner can be 'right' for every client they meet.

The choice of a therapy practitioner is very personal. He or she may look great on paper, but details of training, qualifications, experience etc will not tell you much about the personal qualities you may be looking for in the practitioner you are going to hire. The only way to find out what the person is really like is to meet them. By all means follow your head when gathering information, but never ignore your 'gut'.

You may also want to look at other sources of advice on choosing and working with a therapist. Denis Postle's Clients' Guide to Psychotherapy will help you focus on what's important to you in your choice of practitioner and what questions to ask him or her. Also, even though it's a bit out of date now, you may like to download the NHS leaflet Choosing Talking Therapies.