GAY MEN AND QUEER FOLKS

Individual therapy works differently when the person across from you already knows your world. You don’t have to explain what a leather bar is, or why your relationship with substances is more complicated than “just stop,” or what it means to be navigating a relationship structure that people around you don’t have a frame for. We can skip the orientation and get to work.

I’m a gay man in recovery, kink-identified, and rooted in the Castro and broader SF queer community. I staff outreach booths at Dore, Folsom, and the Castro Night Markets. I know this community as someone who lives in it and I think that matters in the room.

Who comes to see me

Gay men at any point in their lives: newly out, out for a while, or somewhere in between. Queer people navigating identity, desire, and what it means to live authentically in a world that still has a lot of opinions about how that should look. People in the leather and kink communities. People in open or non-monogamous relationships. Creative people and people in tech who can analyze almost everything clearly except the patterns that keep showing up in their closest relationships. People whose relationship with substances is complicated and doesn’t fit neatly into a standard recovery narrative.

I have a particular interest in and affinity for supporting gay men who lived through the AIDS epidemic. If you carry the history of loss, survival, and the aftermath, there’s room to bring it here. That history matters and deserves more than a surface-level response.

What we might work on

The presenting issues vary: relationship patterns that keep repeating, identity questions that haven’t fully resolved, the specific pressures of being a gay or queer person in a high-performance work environment, grief, isolation, the particular loneliness that can exist even inside a community. Sometimes people come in with a clear focus. Sometimes they come in because something feels off and they want a space to figure out what it is. I’m direct and I’ll name what I notice. I can be challenging and I’ll ask about what you might be avoiding. Some people find that useful and it’s worth knowing going in.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
_{—James Baldwin, “As Much Truth As One Can Bear,” The New York Times}

Substances

Recovery has been a big part of my life and I’m glad to work with people on their relationship with substances whether that means abstinence, harm reduction, or figuring out what you want. I use a harm reduction lens and would follow your lead on what you’re hoping to do.

A note on in-person work

I see clients in person in the Castro. That means we might run into each other at a party, at a street fair, or in the neighborhood. I’m a real person who lives and works here, and that’s part of what I have to offer. It’s also something we can be straightforward about from the start.

Read more about me.