Hi! I'm Anastasiia Goncharenko
— psychologist, PCC coach, and existential analyst, based in Zurich. I work with people who are self-aware enough to know something needs to change, and ready enough to actually do something about it.

Let me tell you my story →
about me
I've always been drawn to the question of how people navigate difficulty — and what helps them move through complexity with strength and meaning.

That's what led me to study crisis and emergency psychology at Lomonosov Moscow State University — a five-year program, equivalent to a combined Bachelor's and Master's degree, covering clinical psychology, emergency response, and personality theory, delivered in collaboration with the Centre for Emergency Psychological Assistance of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. I wanted to understand how people function under real pressure — how the mind protects itself, how meaning collapses, and how it sometimes rebuilds.
That question still shapes how I work today.

After graduating, I deliberately went into the corporate world — completing a postgraduate diploma in HR management at the Higher School of Economics and building a career in organizational consulting. I'd planned an ambitious corporate route. And for several years, I built it.

When my husband was relocated to Singapore, I followed. By then I'd spent seven years in HR and consulting — working on large-scale talent and career planning projects in major corporations. It was meaningful work. But over those years I'd realised it wasn't deep enough for me — I kept wanting to get closer to the human beneath the professional role.

I enrolled in two programs simultaneously: a Master's in Counselling at Monash University and a long-term training in Existential Analysis at GLE International, which I'm still deepening today, seven years later. Around the same time I completed a professional coaching certification — and later earned my PCC credential from the International Coaching Federation. It turned out the corporate years weren't wasted — they became the foundation for working with founders and leaders who are navigating exactly what I once navigated from the other side.

I've been in private practice since 2019 — working across languages, cultures, and life contexts, with over a thousand individual sessions in therapy and coaching. My clients have included professionals, founders, creatives, and expats navigating transitions that don't have easy names.

After four years in Singapore, we were on the move again — a few transitional months in Qatar before settling in Switzerland. I've been based in Zurich since 2022, practicing privately and continuing my clinical training at GLE.
my approach is existential analysis — and both words matter
Existential means we work with what's real in your life: your values, your freedom, your relationships, the conditions you didn't choose and the ones you did. Not symptoms to fix or goals to hit — but the actual texture of how you're living.

Analysis means it has structure. We're not just talking — we're looking together at something specific: where in your life the connection to yourself, to others, or to meaning has become blocked, thin, or lost. And how, as a result, you find yourself acting against your own values, your better intentions, or simply against yourself.
We work across five dimensions:
  • How you think — patterns, beliefs, the stories you tell yourself
  • What you feel — emotions that are blocked, buried, or overwhelming
  • What gives your life meaning — values, direction, purpose
  • How you relate — to others, and to yourself
  • What your body is carrying — somatic experience, nervous system, physical expression of inner states
Not all at once — but nothing gets left out.
And we don't stop at insight. The goal is always implementation — building new skills, new responses, new ways of being. Not just understanding what's happening, but actually living differently as a result.
Underneath all the work, there are four questions we keep returning to:
  1. Can I live like this? — do I have what I need, am I supported?
  2. Do I like living like this? — am I in contact with life, with feeling?
  3. May I live like this? — is it right for me, is it mine, authentic?
  4. Should I live like this? — do I want this, does it have meaning?
These aren't questions with fixed answers — and neither are we. A person is never complete; we are ever-changing creatures as long as we are alive. The only question is How? How would I live this period of time from birth to my last days? Hopefully, with inner consent to wherever I find myself in between.
Because Life is a living experience.
Intro call Services
credentials
My training spans academic psychology, clinical psychotherapy, coaching, somatic work, and organizational consulting — built over fifteen years across four countries.

Certificates available upon request.
1. Academic Degrees
  • Crisis & Trauma Psychology — Lomonosov Moscow State University (2008–2013) Five-year integrated program, equivalent to a combined Bachelor's and Master's degree, covering emergency and crisis psychology, trauma, clinical and neuropsychology, and research methodology. Delivered in collaboration with the Emergency Psychological Aid Center.
  • Master of Counselling — CBT, REBT, ACT — Monash University, Singapore (2018–2020) Evidence-based clinical training including placements and multicultural counselling framework.
2. Existential Psychotherapy Training — GLE International
Vienna School of Existential Analysis, founded by Alfried Längle

  • Basic Training in Existential Analysis (2019–2022) Foundations of existential therapy, phenomenological method, emotional competence, and therapeutic encounter.
  • Clinical Counselling Program (2023) Advanced work with depression, anxiety, personality structures, trauma, psychosomatic symptoms, addictions, and existential diagnostics.
  • Clinical Psychotherapy Program (2024–2027, in progress) Depth-level process work, long-term treatment, and existential-analytic diagnosis of complex internal structures.
3. Coaching & Applied Change Work
  • PCC Certified Coach — International Coaching Federation (2023) Professional Coach Training — CoachingUp University, ICF-accredited (2020–2021)
  • Tactical Business Coaching — Exponential Coaching Academy, Canada (2024–2025) — founder mindset, strategic clarity, and executive leadership development.
  • Process-Oriented Psychology in Organizations (2024) — advanced workshop with Ron Sandberg, PCC ICF. Systems facilitation and organizational transformation.
  • Existential Coaching with Alfried Längle (2023) — application of existential philosophy in coaching: values, personal positioning, and meaning-based decision making.
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4. Breathwork & Somatic Integration
  • Certified Breathwork Facilitator (2024) — therapeutic and integrative breathwork including trauma-informed frameworks, emotional release, and body-based integration.
  • Clinical Psychosomatics (2020) — diagnosis and intervention in psychosomatic conditions.
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5. Career & Organizational Psychology
  • Career Counselling — Existential Focus, GLE International (2020)
  • HR & People Management Diploma — Higher School of Economics, Moscow (2014)
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personal
Outside of work, I live in a small village near Zurich with my husband. I'm a certified sailing skipper — and when I'm not on the water, I'm usually somewhere in the mountains, summer or winter.
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