Your Coach
About John A Smith
Counsellor, addiction specialist and coach. The person beside you for all eight weeks.
Most people do not come to coaching because life is easy. They come because life has started happening to them, rather than for them.
John A Smith is a counsellor, addiction specialist and coach based in Phuket, Thailand, working with clients online around the world. He now practises independently, most recently as Clinical Lead at Phuket Island Rehab, following senior counselling roles at treatment centres in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and years of consulting work across South African treatment centres before that. His career has been spent with people at the exact moment change feels hardest, and it taught him something simple: insight alone does not change a life. Structure, practice and honest accountability do.
Before counselling, John A Smith was an educator and head of department, and he holds a Masters in Education and Psychology from the University of Johannesburg. That teaching background shapes how this programme runs: concepts explained clearly, skills practised until they stick, progress reviewed honestly.
He is an Internationally Certified Addiction Professional (ICAP I), a certified SMART Recovery Facilitator, and a Colombo Plan Trainer of Trainers: qualified not only to use these methods with clients, but to train other counsellors in them.
Building Personal Agency brings his one-to-one way of working into a structured eight-week programme, so a small group can do the work together with the same personal attention. That is why the cohort is capped at ten people, and why every stage ends with exercises you actually do, not theory you passively read.
His approach draws on four established psychological frameworks, NLP, CBT, DBT and ACT, sequenced so that each one builds on the last: awareness first, flexibility last.
Without judgement
You will not be lectured or labelled. You will be listened to, and then given something practical to work with.
With structure
Eight weeks, five stages, a clear pathway. You always know where you are and what comes next.
With accountability
Ten people cannot hide in a crowd. John A Smith knows your goals from week one and holds you to them, kindly and consistently.
Looking for one-to-one support instead? John A Smith also works privately as a counsellor.
"The only one who is responsible for, and capable of, changing my life is me."
Work with John A Smith this cohort.
Ten places, filled in order of application. The first cohort begins Monday 31 August 2026 with an introductory price for waitlist members.
Join the waitlist