Self-Guidance Counseling

Health and Wellness Coaching
for children, teens, and young adults

Identify and Organize Goals

Improve Mindset and Motivation
Increase Self-Efficacy and Awareness
Connor Epsteinkraus (NBC-HWC, CPT, BCS)

What

Do you want to focus on?

Why

Is it important to you?

How

How can we help you succeed?

Welcome to Self-Guidance Counseling!

Self-Guidance Counseling is a action-based approach to mental and behavioral wellbeing. As a health and wellness coach, I provide a relationship that encourages self-directed action and supports individuals through a process of self-exploration, discovery, and growth. Collaborating together, we’ll explore your interests, personal strengths, and current challenges. We’ll identify your priorities, determine key behaviors, and create weekly action-steps to guide you along the way to accomplishing your goals and becoming a better version of yourself! 

Unsure if Self-Guidance Counseling is right for you or your child? Don’t hesitate to contact me for free consultation!

Working Together

  • Meet weekly/bi-weekly
  • 30 – 90 minute sessions
  • In-person, or virtual/by phone
  • Sliding payment scale

Specific Focus

Cover one or two topics in-depth

Focus on practicing key behaviors and working towards an outcome

Examples: 
  • Overcoming a challenge
  • Improving a habit or changing a behavior
  • Learning a new skill
  • Accomplishing a goal
  • Completing a long-term project

Open-ended Focus

Explore a wide range of topics

Focus on collaborative discussion and experimenting with weekly action-steps

Examples: 
  • Low motivation
  • Mild anxiety 
  • Unhealthy lifestyle
  • “Stuckness” or lack of direction
  • General self-improvement

General Categories of Services

Cognitive and Mental Health

Physical and Behavioral Health

Social and Emotional Health

Life Management Skills

More Information

About Self-Guidance Counseling

My Methodology

Coaching is about meeting a person 'where they are' and helping them get to 'where they want to be'. Rather than following a pre-determined script, I do my best to adapt my approach to fit the needs and preferences of each client I work with. Over the first 2 - 4 weeks of working with a new client, my intentions are to:

My Guiding Principles

Because everyone's wellness journey is unique, I avoid emphasizing any single approach, technique, or structure. Instead, I follow a set of guiding principles:
  • Anything is better than nothing
  • The more you do something the easier it gets
  • Choose your hard
  • Everything is connected

About Health and Wellness Coaching

What is wellness?

Wellness is a comprehensive view of health and life-satisfaction that takes a 360-degree view of the individual and all of the factors that contribute to a “well-lived life.”

Far more than just the prevention of–or recovery from–illness or injury, wellness is about living a life aligned with your deepest values. It’s about connecting with your true self, finding meaning in your daily activities, and being fully present to the adventure of your life as it unfolds. Wellness is an active and engaged state. It is often experienced as a heightened sense of awareness and control, where one feels full of energy and purpose, yet also calm and at peace.

There are many definitions of wellness. An exact picture of wellness looks different for everyone, but for a general definition, I like to say that wellness is a deep and consistent alignment between what you think, what you do, and what you feel.

What you think: your thoughts

What you do: your actions

What you feel: your emotions

Wellness is not a passive or static state but rather an “active pursuit” that is associated with intentions, choices and actions as we work toward an optimal state of health and wellbeing.

-Global Wellness Institute

There is no consensus around a single definition of well-being, but there is general agreement that at minimum, well-being includes the presence of positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment, happiness), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety), satisfaction with life, fulfillment and positive functioning

-CDC definition

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is health and wellness coaching?

Health and wellness coaching is an interdisciplinary approach to well-being that builds on the principles of humanistic psychology and behavioral change science. More about asking the right questions than knowing the right answers, health and wellness coaching differs from more traditional “expert-centric” support paradigms. Instead of providing external solutions, coaches look to draw inner directions from their clients. Coaching also places an emphasis on taking action; clients are encouraged to pursue process or behavioral goals and to take consistent steps towards their desired future.

The coach approach is:

  • Client-driven: What’s on your mind?
  • Future-focused: What do you want?
  • Action-based: What can you do?
  • Deliberate/intentional: What will you do now?
  • Supportive: How can I help you succeed?

Health and wellness coaching can serve as an alternative to traditional talk therapy for those experiencing subclinical levels of distress or dissatisfaction: people who could use a little extra structure, accountability, or support around an issue, but whose level of need doesn’t require therapeutic care. However, heath and wellness coaching can also serve as a great compliment for those already in therapy–providing a tailor-made environment for practicing any key behaviors identified in therapy or translating insights into actionable steps.

Wellness coaching is ideal for those who are doing “well-enough”–in the gray area between ‘floundering’ and ‘flourishing’

Health & wellness coaches train in behavior change theories, motivational strategies, and health education and promotion theories. They use these to support the client in creating and sustaining change for improved health and well-being.

Health & wellness coaches support clients in activating internal strengths and external resources to make sustainable and healthy lifestyle behavior changes. Health coaches use a client-centered approach wherein clients decide their goals, engage in self-discovery or active learning processes, and self-monitor behaviors to increase accountability, all within the context of an interpersonal relationship with a health coach.

-NBHWC

  • Self-determination (Deci & Ryan)
  • Positive psychology (Seligman, Peterson)
  • Motivational interviewing (Miller & Rollnick)
  • Transtheoretical model (Prochaska)
  • Constructive development (Kegan & Lahey)
  • Psychosocial development (Erickson)
  • Multiple intelligences (Gardner)
  • Emotional intelligence (Goleman)
  • Attribution theory (Weiner)
  • Flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi)
  • Deliberate practice (Ericcson)
  • Self-regulation (Bandura, Mischel)
  • Personality modeling (Schwartz, Myers-Briggs)
  1. Demonstrates ethical practice
  2. Embodies a coaching mindset
  3. Establishes and maintains agreements
  4. Cultivates trust and safety
  5. Maintains presence
  6. Listens actively
  7. Evokes awareness
  8. Facilitates client growth

One can have no lesser or greater mastery than mastery of one’s self.

Leonardo Da Vinci

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