Put Me in, Coach.
Feeling trapped? Feeling like a sack of sh*t? There are simple frameworks and tools that will make you feel more free and start kicking ass.
Mental health coaching is a structured, evidence-based way for people to achieve better relationships, focus, career, freedom, and success.
Adam Braus, PhD
Mental Health Coach · San Francisco, CA
Some of the common situations my clients find themselves in are:
Career or work trouble
Difficulty dating or making romantic relationships last
In a relationship that is in crisis or not satisfying
Emotional distress—feeling blue or anxious—with or without a clear reason
A major transition—job loss, divorce, a company sold, kids grown and gone
Feeling trapped or like a loser
My clients often have thought about therapy, but either can’t find a therapist that gets them and their situation, or didn’t like therapy when they tried it.
That's where coaching comes in. It's not therapy — and it's not a consolation prize. It's a different kind of work, focused on where you're going rather than where you've been.
My name is Adam Braus. I have a PhD in philosophy and ethics and have spent over a decade studying the science of what actually helps people change. I am a software engineer and was the director of a YC company. I built and ran a coaching program at a university, training eight coaches, and working with over three hundred clients. I've founded companies, run a nonprofit, and consulted with startups. I've worked with both a therapist and a coach myself, so I know exactly what each one can and can't do for you.
I work with people one on one either online or at my home in San Francisco.
If any of this sounds familiar, let's have a conversation.
Client Testimonials
"I was stuck and I'd outgrown where I was and couldn't figure out my next move. Adam helped me get clear on what I actually wanted. That turned out to be tougher (but more fun). I quit, moved to NYC, and built a successful startup. Now I'm deep in my next one. Being coached by Braus was where that all started."
— Avery Durrant, Founder, NYC"Adam helped me through a pretty crazy career transition leaving social media to produce films in LA. Lots of setbacks and distractions along the way but he always had a new framework to kept me focused on what actually mattered. Honestly I didn't expect coaching to work as well as it did. Highly recommend."
— Teddy Hawke, Film Producer, Los Angeles"I had a startup idea I couldn't commit to. Kept second-guessing myself, going in circles. Adam helped me cut through all of that and get genuinely excited about what I was building in AI and biosciences. I'm all in now. Coaching FTW."
— Noah DeLay, Founder, Cambridge MACoaching v. Therapy
Coaching and therapy have some things in common. You commonly work 1-on-1 but it can also be done in groups. Both your therapist and coach are expert helpers that have your best interests at heart and follow a code of ethics. Both therapists and coaches keep what is said in sessions confidential. But there are significant differences between the two that makes them separate and complimentary.
| Mental Health Coaching |
|---|
| Forward-looking — focused on where you're going |
| Works with functional people who want more |
| Goal setting, planning, and accountability |
| You drive the agenda |
| No diagnosis, no clinical records |
| Like working with a personal trainer — for your mind |
| Flexible, ongoing, built around your life |
| Therapy |
|---|
| Backward-looking — focused on understanding the past |
| Designed for people experiencing clinical symptoms |
| Processing, insight, and emotional healing |
| Clinician guides the treatment plan |
| Diagnosis may be required for insurance billing |
| Like working with a doctor — for a specific condition |
| Structured sessions within a clinical framework |
Coaching can be complimentary to therapy but is not a substitute. A mental health coach is not a licensed therapist or psychologist. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, clinical depression, trauma, or other serious symptoms, please seek a licensed therapist or clinician.
Practice Areas
Mental Health Coaching
It's waking up tired, going through the motions, feeling irritable or flat or quietly dread-filled in ways you can't fully explain — and can't seem to shake. You can keep going, but you are no well enough to feel like yourself or feel like you are thriving.
Coaching won't diagnose you or put you in a category. It will help you understand what's driving it, interrupt the patterns that keep it in place, and build toward days that don't feel like something to get through.
Direction, purpose & fulfillment
By most measures, you've made it. And yet. The achievement feels hollow, the goals feel borrowed, and the question — is this it? — won't stop surfacing.
Clients reconnect with what genuinely matters to them — not as an abstract exercise, but as a foundation for making real decisions about what comes next.
Anxiety & stress
You're not sleeping well, your mind won't quiet down, and there's a low-grade dread that follows you from Sunday night through the week.
Clients learn to interrupt the patterns driving their anxiety — and build the habits and perspective that make calm feel less like a reward and more like a baseline.
Relationships, dating & marriage
The same fights. The growing distance. The slow erosion of intimacy that seems impossible to stop. Or you're single, and want to go on more dates or start something more serious but things keep on not working out.
With coaching, clients build the communication skills, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness to show up differently — in the relationships they're in, or the ones they're trying to build.
ADD/ADHD coaching
You're smart enough to know exactly what you're supposed to do — and consistently unable to do it. The chaos, the shame, the compensating. It's exhausting to be this capable and this stuck.
Clients build systems that actually fit how their brain works — not borrowed discipline, but structure designed for them. Less chaos. More follow-through.
Ethics consulting & coaching
You're facing a decision that keeps you up at night — a conflict of interest, a whistleblowing call, moral injury from institutional pressure. The stakes are real and the right answer isn't obvious.
Rigorous, confidential thinking partnership on the hardest decisions — grounded in ethical frameworks, practical experience, and zero agenda except getting it right.
Career & life transition
A layoff, a pivot, a retirement, an empty house. The old structure is gone and the next one hasn't appeared. The in-between is disorienting in a way you didn't expect.
Clients move through transition with intention rather than inertia — identifying what they actually want next and building a realistic path toward it.
Men's mental health
You don’t feel great. Things are not working out at work, in relationships, or what have you. Let’s figure this out and do something about it.
A direct, no-performance-required space to work through what's actually going on — and a practical, science-based approach to finding a path forward.
Startup & nonprofit consulting
The inflection point you're at — a pivot, a co-founder conflict, a funding crisis, a mission drift — is exactly the kind of moment when clear thinking is hardest and the cost of error is highest.
Founders and nonprofit leaders get a sounding board who has built, led, and exited — and can help you see the decision clearly enough to act on it.
How to Get Started
Initial Conversation ($50)
A structured 30-minute conversation where you share what's going on in your life and what you're hoping to change, and I share how I work and what we'd do together — so we can find out if we're the right fit. If we are, the fee counts toward your first session or program.
The Focus Session ($275)
A 60-minute coaching session built for rapid breakthrough and transformation of one key issue. You bring what you’d like to be coached on. Maybe you want to stop feeling dread or anxiety, weather a mid-life crisis, get a relationship on better footing, or just be more focused and productive. Whatever it is, this is the session where you will receive valuable, science-based frameworks and tools to improve your life.
Discounts are available for people with financial hardship.
4-Month Program ($2350)
The core coaching engagement. 10 sessions over four months — 3 in the first month to build momentum, 2 per month after that, with 1 floating session to use whenever you need it most or added on the end. Designed to take you from where you are to where you want to be, with enough time to make change that actually sticks.
You will book this manually with me after your initial conversation or a focus session.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
No — and it's important to be clear about that. Coaching is designed for people who are functional but stuck, unfulfilled, or ready to make a significant change. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, clinical depression, trauma, or serious psychiatric symptoms, please seek a licensed therapist or clinician. Coaching and therapy serve different needs, and sometimes the right answer is both.
-
A good friend listens. A good mentor shares their experience. A coach does something different — uses structured, evidence-based frameworks to help you identify what's actually blocking you, set meaningful goals, and hold you accountable to following through. It's a professional relationship with a specific purpose and a proven methodology behind it.
-
Some clients notice a shift after the first session. Meaningful, lasting change typically takes three to six months. That's why the 4-Month Program exists — real change needs enough time to become real habit.
-
Yes. While much of the language on this site speaks to men — because the need for male mental health support is acute and underserved — coaching is open to anyone who feels it's the right fit.
-
I use a science-based approach to coaching, not my own experience or know-how. In terms of credentials, I have a PhD in Philosophy and Ethics, a MSc in Higher Educational Leadrship, twelve years as a professor, and I built a coaching program that successfully served over three hundred clients. I’ve also helped multiple coaches start their coaching practices. Finally, I've worked with a coach and therapist myself, and have been through the process from the inside.
-
That's exactly what the initial conversation is for. We spend thirty minutes getting honest about where you are, what you're dealing with, and whether coaching — and working with me specifically — makes sense. If it doesn't, I'll tell you.
Time to get your sh*t together.
A truly better, freer, more successful life is possible. Book your initial conversation now. This is a 30-minute conversation where you share what's going on in your life and what you're hoping to change, and I share how I work and what we'd do together — so we can find out if we're the right fit. The $100 fee counts toward your first session or program.
