Michael Jacobs

Michael Jacobs was for many years Director of the counselling and psychotherapy courses in the Department of Adult Education, University of Leicester. In developing those courses he published a number of key texts which are used in other training courses - notably The Presenting Past (Open University Press, 2022 (5th edition) and Psychodynamic Counselling in Action (Sage, 2024 6th edition). He has also written a number of other books (Sigmund Freud and D.W Winnicott in the Sage series) and edited three series for Open University Press - such as Core Concepts in Therapy. His most recent publication is Reflecting on Therapy (Karnac). Other books include Illusion - a Psychodynamic Interpretation of Thinking and Belief, Shakespeare on the Couch, and Our Desire of Unrest.

Michael has written a professional memoir (Open University Press, 2018): Fifty Years of Counselling: My Presenting Past. He has been a visiting Professor at Bournemouth University and at the University of Leeds. He has a Ph.D on psychoanalytic interpretations of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now in his eighties he is retired from practice and teaching but is always ready to correspond with any who wish to write to him. He can be accessed through the National Society for Counselling and Psychotherapy, of which he is a Senior Accredited Counsellor and Supervisor; and a Fellow of NCPS as well as BACP and BCPC.