A career in mental health does not always begin in a psychology classroom. For Jim Denning, it ran through economics, engineering, ministry and his own experience of psychological distress before arriving in the counselling room.

Today, Denning is a Texas licensed professional counsellor and founder of The Denning Center in San Antonio. He works with adults experiencing trauma, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, relationship difficulties and the effects of emotionally harmful relationships.

His earlier career may seem unrelated. Before becoming a counsellor, Denning worked as a bartender before moving into technology, where he became an IT engineer and technical trainer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He later served in prison ministry, including work with incarcerated men. Each of these very different environments gave him a close view of people from different walks of life and helped shape a question that still guides his practice: what is happening beneath the behaviour that other people see?

“People are rarely what their worst moment says they are,” Denning says.

An engineer’s interest in the mechanism

Denning’s engineering background influences how he approaches therapy. Rather than focusing only on the visible symptom, he wants to understand the process sustaining it. A person may seek help for anxiety, for example, while unresolved trauma, grief or a harmful relationship pattern is contributing to the distress.

This does not mean treating a person like a machine. It means remaining curious about why a response that seems irrational in the present may once have served a protective purpose.

Denning holds master’s degrees in counselling and ministry and has practised professionally for more than 12 years. His clinical approach includes Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART). He is Master Certified in ART, the highest practitioner certification offered within the ART training system.

ART is a structured therapy that uses guided eye movements while a client brings a distressing memory or image to mind. The person does not have to describe every detail aloud. The aim is not to erase the memory, but to help reduce the intense physical and emotional response connected with it.

Denning is careful not to present one method as the answer for everyone. Suitability must be assessed, and some clients need stabilisation, a different therapeutic approach or a higher level of care. He also avoids promising a fixed number of sessions or a guaranteed result.

Trauma, suicidal thoughts, and harmful relationships

Denning’s principal areas of experience include trauma, suicidal ideation and recovery from relationships described as narcissistic or emotionally abusive. In this work, the focus is the person seeking help: their safety, boundaries, patterns of attachment and recovery. It is not diagnosing an absent partner or applying a personality-disorder label from a second-hand account.

That distinction matters. “Narcissistic abuse” is widely used by the public, but it is not itself a formal mental health diagnosis. Narcissistic personality disorder is a specific clinical diagnosis that requires direct assessment by a qualified professional. Content about the two should not casually treat them as interchangeable.

Denning also brings personal perspective to his work with despair. He is the author of Make It to Midnight: Learning to Live When You Want to Die, a first-person account of living through suicidal distress and looking for practical ways to reach the next day. The book is not a substitute for assessment or treatment, but it gives readers an honest account from someone who has occupied both the client’s and counsellor’s chair.

His public education work has included suicide-prevention classes throughout Texas, as well as talks and interviews about trauma and harmful relationships.

A direct approach to fit and referral

The Denning Center offers counselling in San Antonio and telehealth for eligible clients located in Texas. Denning treats the initial consultation as a two-way assessment rather than a sales call. The client is deciding whether they feel understood; the therapist is deciding whether his experience and setting match what the person needs.

Sometimes the responsible answer is a referral. Denning says that is not a failed consultation but part of ethical care.

His route from engineering to ministry to counselling is unusual, but the thread is consistent: look beyond the surface, understand the mechanism and do not reduce a person to the hardest thing they have experienced.

FAQs

• Who is Jim Denning? Jim Denning, MA, LPC, is a Texas Licensed Professional Counselor and the founder of The Denning Center in San Antonio. He has more than 12 years of professional counselling experience and works primarily with trauma, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and recovery from emotionally harmful relationships.
• What is The Denning Center? The Denning Center is Jim Denning’s counselling practice in San Antonio, Texas. It provides individual therapy in person and, when clinically and legally appropriate, telehealth to clients located elsewhere in Texas.
• What type of therapist is Jim Denning? Jim Denning is a licensed professional counsellor in Texas, licence number 73687. He holds master’s degrees in counselling and ministry and is a national certified counsellor. His work combines established counselling approaches with specialised trauma training.
• What does Jim Denning specialise in? Jim Denning’s stated areas of greatest experience are trauma, suicidal ideation and recovery from narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationships. He also works with posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, grief and relationship difficulties. Whether he is the right therapist depends on an individual assessment.
• Does Jim Denning treat narcissistic personality disorder? The information currently supplied by Jim Denning confirms a focus on helping people affected by narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationships. It does not clearly establish that he diagnoses or treats narcissistic personality disorder itself. NPD treatment should not be advertised until he explicitly confirms that service and its scope.
• Does Jim Denning help survivors of narcissistic abuse? Yes. Jim Denning identifies recovery from narcissistic abuse and emotionally harmful relationships as one of his main areas of experience. Therapy focuses on the client’s safety, boundaries, trauma responses and recovery rather than diagnosing an absent partner.
• What is accelerated resolution therapy? Accelerated resolution therapy, or ART, is a structured therapy that uses guided eye movements while a client works with distressing memories and images. The goal is to reduce the emotional and physical intensity associated with the memory, not to erase the facts of what happened. ART is not suitable for everyone and results cannot be guaranteed.
• Is accelerated resolution therapy the same as EMDR? No. ART and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing both use eye movements in trauma-focused work, but they follow different procedures. EMDR has a larger research base, while ART includes a more directive imagery-rescripting component. A trained clinician should assess which approach, if either, is appropriate.
• Does The Denning Center offer online therapy? The Denning Center offers telehealth to appropriate clients who are physically located in Texas at the time of care. Suitability, availability and licensing requirements should be confirmed directly with the practice before booking.
• How can someone start therapy with Jim Denning? A prospective client can request an initial consultation through The Denning Center. The consultation is used to discuss the person’s goals, answer initial questions and decide whether Jim Denning’s experience and approach are a suitable match.

Robert Haynes, a psychology graduate from the University of Hertfordshire, has a keen interest in the fields of mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.