Mental Health Coaching
Mental health coaching with Valan Kornhaus using DBT-informed tools to build resilience, manage stress, improve confidence, and navigate life’s challenges.
MENTAL STRENGTH FOR LIFE’S LONG HAUL.
You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.
DBT-informed mental health coaching to help you build practical skills, navigate challenges, and create meaningful change in your life.
MORE THAN JUST TALKING ABOUT WHAT'S WRONG.
BUILD SKILLS FOR WHAT COMES NEXT.
Valan's coaching incorporates principles and practical skills from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help you better understand your thoughts, emotions and behaviors—and develop tools for responding differently.
Her coaching focuses on four core areas:
MINDFULNESS
Become more aware and present instead of operating on autopilot.
EMOTION REGULATION
Understand your emotions and develop healthier ways to respond to them.
DISTRESS TOLERANCE
Build tools for getting through difficult situations without making them worse.
INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Communicate more effectively, establish boundaries and strengthen relationships.
The goal isn't to eliminate difficult emotions or difficult days. It's to build the skills to handle them better.
The “Breaking Through” system
YOU WON'T JUST TALK ABOUT CHANGE.
YOU'LL WORK ON IT.
Every coaching package includes Valan's Breaking Through workbook—a structured, DBT-based resource designed to take the concepts discussed during coaching and turn them into practical work between sessions.
Rather than starting over every week, your sessions and exercises build on one another.
Your body isn’t the only thing you’re training
Performance brings its own mental challenges—confidence, expectations, comparison, setbacks, injury, race anxiety and the inevitable moments when you want to quit.
Mental health coaching can help athletes develop skills that extend well beyond race day.
Confidence • Resilience • Focus • Emotional Regulation • Identity • Balance
Looking for run + strength programming? → Explore Ultramarathon Coaching
Explore Mental Health Coaching Options
DBT-Informed • Practical • Individualized • Judgment-Free
Valan Kornhaus is a wife, mother of four, trail and ultra runner, U.S. Army veteran, and a passionate mental health advocate. With a B.A. in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina and a Master’s in Mental Health Counseling from Colorado Christian University, Valan blends real-world experience with clinical knowledge to support athletes in building mental resilience.
As an experienced ultra runner of five years, she has completed numerous ultramarathons—and also knows firsthand the emotional challenges of a DNF. Her journey inspired her to author Breaking Through: A DBT Workbook for Athletes, a resource designed to help runners and endurance athletes navigate the mental side of training, racing, and recovery.
Whether you're chasing a finish line or facing personal roadblocks, Valan is deeply committed to helping others break through self-doubt, manage performance anxiety, and develop the mental strength to go the distance.
