Coaching with Davit

About Davit

Davit is a coach who values continuous self-development and learning. He is working towards a postgraduate degree in psychotherapy at the University of Cambridge which eventually leads to UKCP accreditation as a therapist. He holds postgraduate advanced certificate from the same university. He is also pursuing a coaching training program accredited by the Association for Coaching. Davit holds a graduate degree in Psychology from New York University, where he studied on a full scholarship.

Originally from the Republic of Georgia, Davit first left his home country on a U.S. Department of State scholarship to continue studying in the United States. Since then, he got a chance to live and study in the US, the UAE, the UK, Italy, and Germany. He speaks fluent Georgian, English, Russian, and Italian.

Davit started career coaching and counseling in the Republic of Georgia, where thanks to the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund he helped high school students accelerate their impact and use their careers for societal benefit.

He also worked as a psychology researcher at NYU and co-authored a peer-reviewed paper in social psychology. Currently, he works at Leaf, an educational non-profit focused on accelerating impact. Outside of counseling and academic psychology, Davit has a background in recruitment, sales, operations, and startups. From time to time, he writes op-eds for Georgian newspapers and he is interested in politics, economics, and art.

For Prospective Clients

Davit is excited to work with people from diverse backgrounds and offers help in a variety of languages, for a variety of issues.

He welcomes clients from the Effective Altruism and Rationality communities as he is an active member of the EA community himself. He believes that he could especially benefit people working in high-impact careers on issues such as AI safety or people starting their own effective charities.

More broadly, Davit is excited to help anyone who wants to reevaluate their values, achieve a work-life balance, work on their communication skills and relationships, improve mind & body communication, enhance productivity, and process emotions that might be hard to cope with. He works with people with moderate and mild anxiety and is open to a variety of challenges, but is unable to assist with severe disorders where medical and psychiatric help may be more appropriate. He is not an expert on everything or an enlightened guru life coach, but a pragmatic and empathetic human who can help you help yourself.

The Approach

Davit integrates psychotherapeutic counseling and coaching to adapt to each client’s individual needs. Some clients prefer a more strategy-based approach, while some want a space to explore their unexpressed emotions, and individual approach is discussed on the first session.

He is training in integrative approach (psychodynamic, person-centered, and transactional analysis therapies), has a certification in Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), and is constantly upskilling in behavioral and evidence-based coaching techniques.

Davit firmly believes in the following principles when interacting with the clients:

• Evidence-based practice. Psychology is a science that uses statistics and experimental evidence to make theories on human behavior, and it’s important to ground one’s practice in what has been proven empirically where possible.
• Unconditional positive regard, congruence, and empathy. As Carl Roger suggested, healing happens in a space where a counselor is able to feel the client’s world and relate to it without criticising or invalidating their experience, where both sides are able to be their genuine selves and where the client is accepted and regarded positively regardless of challenging behaviors or thoughts.
• Honesty and realism. Davit is not going to tell you that he can provide you with a magic technique that will resolve all of your problems in one session, and will not promise a total transformation of your mind using some secret spells. As a human and a developing mental health professional, Davit has his own limitations in terms of who is he able to work with.
• Diversity of thought and experience. Some clients have firmly atheist views, some integrate spirituality and religion as an essential part of their lives, some have never been outside of the UK, and some have struggled to move here like many of us. Understanding of different context and frame of reference is crucially important for the success of the therapeutic and/or coaching relationship.