Both Chairs — What Nick Learned as the Patient That Now Shapes How He Counsels Executives

The Executive as Client: a psychotherapist with lived recovery on counselling high-achieving leaders

Nick Jonsson knows the counselling room from both sides. Two decades into senior leadership roles across Asia, burnout, alcohol addiction and loneliness put him in hospital, and recovery is where he first sat in the client's chair. Today he holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychotherapy and Counselling from the School of Positive Psychology in Singapore, practises through one of Singapore's leading counselling centres, and volunteers in suicide prevention. He talks with practitioners about what a high-achieving client protects in the first sessions, why success makes the truth harder to say out loud, and what lived experience adds to clinical training. For counselling and psychotherapy audiences, this is a working clinician's view of the executive client, from someone who was one.

About Nick Jonsson

Nick Jonsson, podcast guest

#1 Global Thought Leader on Executive Loneliness, International Bestselling Author and TEDx Speaker

900+ EGN Southeast Asia membersTop 2% Ironman athletes worldwide2026 GHP Most Empowering Mental Health Leadership Advocate#28 worldwide Global Gurus Top 30 Coaching Professionals

Nick Jonsson is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on Executive Loneliness. His pioneering work has earned him a dedicated Executive Loneliness Wikipedia page and international recognition, establishing him as one of the world's most respected voices on leadership, vulnerability, mental wellbeing, and authentic connection.

Ranked #28 in the world among the Global Gurus Top 30 Coaching Professionals, Nick is a TEDx speaker, international bestselling author of Executive Loneliness, Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Certified Master Coach (CMC), qualified Counsellor and Psychotherapist, facilitator, and certified Team Psychological Safety practitioner.

For more than two decades, Nick held senior international leadership roles, leading businesses and high-performing teams across Asia. From the outside, his career reflected success. Privately, however, he struggled with burnout, alcohol addiction, and overwhelming loneliness - experiences that ultimately became the turning point of his life.

Rather than allowing those challenges to define him, Nick rebuilt his life through recovery, vulnerability, discipline, and purpose. Today, every keynote, workshop, coaching engagement, and counselling conversation is grounded in both professional expertise and lived experience.

Nick works globally with executives, leadership teams, founders, and organizations through keynote speaking, executive coaching, counselling and psychotherapy, leadership facilitation, and Team Psychological Safety training.

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Successful on the Outside, Addicted on the Inside | Nick's Recovery Story
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The Sober Fix Podcast· Listen to Nick Jonsson on air