Joshua Cole MBACP

Mr Joshua Cole
Senior Tutor In Mental Health

Joshua Cole is a qualified Mental Health Professional with a Postgraduate Diploma in Mental Health (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, CBT), and a First Class Honours Degree in Social Work from Sheffield Hallam University. He specialises in the counselling and treatment of individuals with complex needs, is Certificated in the Treatment and Diagnosis of Dissociative Disorders, and has achieved Master Practitioner status with the National Centre for Eating Disorders.

Joshua has worked in a variety of roles and environments, including as a Psychosocial Development Worker in a low secure psychiatric hospital, where he provided specialist long-term treatment for four years to a group of 15 women who self-harmed regularly, were diagnosed as having severe Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and were considered a risk to themselves and others. He also delivered counselling and advice on a one-to-one basis in his own private practice to those experiencing complex issues, and was previously commissioned as an Independent Consultant in the role of Care Coordinator with the Social Services Department of Gloucestershire County Council. It is worthy of note that the council had never previously appointed an independent practitioner to this position.

Joshua launched and established the Registered Charity BPDWORLD in 2003, a service designed and constructed to offer information, advice and support to those afflicted with BPD. Although no longer a registered charity, the organisation continues to provide those crucial services to an increasing number of clients.

During his degree studies at Hallam University, Joshua completed a total of 200 days of social work placement in child settings, specialising in family relationship and child protection issues. The first placement was in Armley Prison, Leeds, where he helped male prisoners to build family relations and become more involved fathers. The second placement, with Barnsley County Council, was in child protection. During this placement he was commended for his enthusiasm and competence, and for taking advantage of every available learning opportunity. Indeed, he is an inveterate self-improver, as is demonstrated by his broad skill and qualification base, and is committed to personal and professional development. Joshua is registered as a Social Worker with the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

Commitment to the provision of Professional Tuition
Passionate about promoting change within the mental health profession, and contributing to the further education of fellow professionals, Joshua has authored several HNC-level, Open College Network-accredited, training courses in the fields of both counselling and mental health. The courses deliver up-to-the-minute knowledge and direction, and provide expert commentary on key developmental issues and strategies. He has personally designed, developed, and delivered distance learning courses for mental health professionals and students, which regularly feature as the most popular purchased tuition from UK Open Learning, with his tuition on counselling being the college's most requested course. Joshua also developed a highly-successful online portal through which students are able to submit assignments, receive feedback, and obtain expert guidance.

This experience has led to the creation and development of his own distance learning establishment, MyDistance Learning College (http://www.mydistance-learning-college.com), a UK Limited Company. This venture further expands the much-needed flexible learning environment for people unable to attend full-time tertiary education. Joshua has been granted the NCFE Investing in Quality License, and the College has been awarded NCFE Approved Centre status.

Areas of Expertise
Joshua studied with Professors Anthony Bateman (Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, and Honorary Senior Lecturer at University College, London (UCL), and Peter Fonagy (Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis at UCL), to become skilled in the use of MBT (Mentalisation Based Treatment). This is an innovative treatment for personality disorder which can be implemented by nurses and other generic mental health professionals, making it generalisable to other services in the NHS.

He also studied Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) with Dr. Fiona Kennedy. DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioural techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing, with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful-awareness largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice. It is the first therapy that has been experimentally demonstrated to be effective in the treatment of BPD.

Having thus acquired the specialised MBT and DBT training, Joshua was able to deliver a wider range of counselling and therapeutic treatments to a more diverse range of clients.

Joshua has organised conferences on BPD, which have included contributions from key speakers and subject matter experts such as Professor Anthony Bateman.

Contributions to various mainstream media presentations have included the BBC radio programme "All in the mind", with Dr. Raj Persaud (Consultant Psychiatrist and Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry), and a documentary on BPD, which investigated the theories, causes and treatment of the disorder.