Who I work with
It is an interesting time to be a man.
Young men in particular are coming of age in a world that offers nearly unlimited connection and, somehow, leaves many of them profoundly alone.
Pornography is available before many boys have any real understanding of sex and their own sexuality. Dating is run by algorithms, and the 90/10 rule feeds dating company revenues, not your needs. Screens can consume thousands of hours that might otherwise have been spent developing friendships, competence, confidence, and a life in the physical world. Dating has changed. Economic independence often comes later. Expectations around masculinity have changed too, while agreement about what should replace the old rules remains harder to find.
There is no shortage of people willing to tell men what they are doing wrong. There is considerably less useful conversation about how to become a good one.
Sometimes it is easier to say it to another man
Most therapists are women, and many do exceptional work with men. In some circumstances, working with a female therapist may be particularly valuable.
But some men do not want to talk to a woman about certain things: masturbation, sex, pornography, orientation questioning, gender identity, performance, shame, anger, rejection, loneliness, competition, money, failure, the body, attraction, fear, or things they think they are supposed to know by now but do not.
Sometimes it is easier to say those things to another man. If that is you, we can talk plainly. Say it the way you would say it to a friend. I am not going to flinch, or quietly file it as a symptom.
What we actually work on
I am not interested in teaching you that masculinity is the problem, nor am I interested in selling you some romanticized version of what a "real man" is supposed to be. I would rather help you figure that out for yourself, starting from questions worth sitting with:
- What kind of man do you want to be when nobody is watching?
- What do you want to be capable of?
- What responsibilities are actually yours?
- How do you want to behave toward the people you love?
- What deserves your strength, and where is that strength becoming rigidity?
- What messages about masculinity did you inherit from your early years that don't function in your life anymore?
The goal is not to make you more masculine or less masculine. It is to help you become more deliberate about the man you are becoming.
Your social media feed does not get a vote.
The practical shape of it
- Sessions
- 60 minutes, by telehealth
- Where
- Anywhere in Colorado or California. No waiting room, no reception desk, nobody in the parking lot.
- When
- Arranged around your schedule rather than an office's
- Fees
- $200 a session. Nothing is billed to insurance, so no diagnosis reaches a health plan because of anything I do.