Meet Constantine Dhonau

A little about how I got here

I studied Research Psychology at New College of Florida, where my undergraduate work focused on self-compassion in LGBTQIA+ individuals and was later presented at Teachers College, Columbia University.

After college, I spent four years in therapeutic wilderness work, completing more than 8,000 hours and 500 field days working with teens and young adults navigating major challenges. I eventually became a Senior Field Guide Mentor, training other guides in leadership, crisis response, emotional regulation, and group process.

Since then, my work has included private coaching, mental health coaching and group work, preparation and integration coaching, somatic approaches, mindfulness, and crisis support. I’ve worked with more than 750 clients across more than 1,500 hours of coaching and built programs ranging from focused 30-day work to year-long engagements.

It’s a somewhat unusual professional path.

I like that about it.

Each part has taught me something different about people: psychology taught me how to study patterns; wilderness taught me what happens when theory collides with real life; coaching taught me how much can change through the right conversation; and years of working with people in difficult moments taught me not to underestimate either how complicated we are or how capable we can be.

Training & experience

Professional Certified Coach (PCC), International Coaching Federation

BA, Research Psychology — New College of Florida

750+ clients and 1,500+ hours of coaching experience

8,000+ hours / 500+ field days in therapeutic wilderness programming

Research on self-compassion in LGBTQIA+ individuals presented at Teachers College, Columbia University

Experience in mental health coaching, group facilitation, Motivational Interviewing, mindfulness, self-compassion, somatic approaches, crisis response, and behavior change

Outside of coaching, I write, DJ, spend a slightly unreasonable amount of time making Chinese tea, study Daoism, practice hot yoga, and get outside whenever I can.

One of my long-running projects is Dao De Jing · The Exquisite Corpse, a comparative study built from years of collecting and examining different English translations of the Dao De Jing.

That project has influenced the way I think about people more than I expected.

The same few lines can look completely different depending on who translated them and when you read them, no matter how many times you come back to them. Neither interpretation necessarily has to be useless—or even wrong. Human beings are often like that too.

There is usually more than one way to understand what’s happening.

Part of my job is helping you find the one that gives you somewhere useful to go.

Our work can be thoughtful without becoming painfully serious.

There will probably be difficult conversations. There will also be humor, tangents, strange metaphors, practical experiments, and occasionally a 2,500-year-old Chinese philosopher wandering into a conversation about your dating life or procrastination.

Whatever we use, I care about whether it helps.

If something is useful, we keep it.

If it isn’t, we don’t.

And if we discover that the thing you thought you came in to work on isn’t really the thing at all?

Good.

Now we have something interesting to talk about.