My Story

Hi, I’m Stefan.

I’m a DBT skills coach, writer, educator, and someone who came to this work through lived experience.

My relationship with Dialectical Behavior Therapy began on the other side of the conversation—as someone trying to understand my own emotions, relationships, patterns, and pain. What started as learning skills to help me navigate my own life eventually became a much larger question:

How do we actually use this stuff when life gets messy?

Because understanding a skill intellectually and being able to reach for it when you’re overwhelmed, ashamed, angry, afraid, or stuck are two very different things.

That question is at the heart of Coaching With Stefan.

I work with people who want practical support turning what they know into what they can practice. My coaching draws heavily from DBT, including mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, self-compassion, and values-driven behavior.

I’m especially interested in the space between accountability and compassion.

I don’t believe we have to shame ourselves into changing. I believe we can take responsibility for our behavior while remaining curious about what shaped it. We can validate an emotion without automatically acting on it. We can accept where we are while still working toward where we want to go.

Both can be true.

I’m not a therapist, and coaching is not a replacement for therapy, diagnosis, crisis care, or other mental health treatment. What I offer is skills-focused coaching: a place to learn, practice, troubleshoot, and strengthen the tools that can help you navigate your life more effectively.

I don’t expect perfection from the people I work with. I’m much more interested in something sustainable:

Shortening the distance between getting knocked off balance and finding your way back—with increasing skill and decreasing shame.