Men's therapy & counseling in Seattle
For men who feel overwhelmed, disconnected, stuck, or ashamed—whether you're navigating your first real relationship in your 20s or rebuilding after everything fell apart in your 40s.
Practice details
You're carrying more than you let on
Maybe you're in your 20s, wondering why nothing feels right even though you're "supposed to" have it all ahead of you.
Maybe you're in your 30s or 40s, looking at what you've built and feeling empty.
Maybe you're starting over after everything fell apart.
On the outside, you might look fine. Or you might look like a mess. Either way, inside? You're overwhelmed. Tired. Angry at how quickly you react—or shut down. You feel lonely in ways you can't explain.
Nothing has to be "falling apart" for this to be real.
You can't keep doing it like this.
“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?”— Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”
What brings men to therapy and counseling
The emotional stuff — anger, depression, anxiety in men:
- Stress is turning into anger
- They're snapping at their partner, kids, or coworkers
- They feel numb or quiet on the inside
- They can't enjoy anything anymore
- They're shutting down emotionally
- They feel ashamed of their reactions
- They don't know how to talk about feelings
The identity and relationship issues:
- Something feels "off," but they can't name it
- They're stuck between who they were told to be and who they actually are
- They're questioning everything they thought they wanted
- They feel behind their peers or like they're failing at adulthood
- They're a gay, bi, or queer man trying to locate some authentic version of masculinity when none of the available scripts ever fit
- They don't know who they are outside of work/relationships/expectations
The life transition stuff:
- First real relationship and terrified of screwing it up
- Career that looked good on paper but feels meaningless
- Breakup, divorce, or loss that broke something open
- Just came out and processing what that means
- Successful on paper but miserable in their life
The survival stuff:
- They've been holding it together for so long they forgot what "not holding it together" even means
- Childhood trauma they've never talked about
- Always had to be the strong one, the provider, the one who handles it
Men are taught to be strong, handle it, keep it together, not burden anyone. Those rules worked—until they didn't.
What men I work with notice changing
The rules you absorbed about being a man don't get rewritten in therapy. You'll still know them. You'll still feel the pull of them. What changes is how much they're the only available script, and how much of your daily life is spent enforcing them on yourself.
Most of the men I work with notice it first in the small places. A conflict where they didn't immediately go quiet, or didn't immediately go sharp. A moment with their kid where they were actually there, instead of three sentences ahead, managing. A morning that started without the scan — without the inventory of who they might be letting down today. The thing they used to be able to feel only as irritation arrives, one afternoon, as sadness, and they recognize what it is.
None of this looks like a different person. It looks like the same person, with more room.
Anger is the place this work most often surprises people. Most men I see don't have an anger problem in the sense they think they do. They have a no-room-for-anything-else problem; anger is what's allowed through, so it's what shows up. When the other channels open back up, the anger usually doesn't go away — it just stops being the only thing speaking. That's a different result from being told to manage it.
What men I see are usually looking for
Most of the men who come in haven't been avoiding therapy out of disbelief. They've been avoiding it because the version they've heard about — the version where you sit and narrate feelings in a vocabulary you don't have, while someone nods — isn't what they're looking for. What they tend to want is more concrete:
- Clarity
- Steadiness
- Honesty
- Someone who gets how overwhelming emotions can feel
- Someone who won't judge them
- Someone who helps them understand what's going on inside
How men's counseling works in my practice
Existential–Phenomenological Therapy — We talk about your actual lived experience, not labels. We explore what's happening in your body, emotions, and relationships—not just what you think about it.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) — For men stuck between who they think they should be and who they actually are. ACT builds psychological flexibility: the ability to feel difficult emotions without being controlled by them, and to act from your values instead of your defenses.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) — For men carrying shame, trauma, or stuck emotional patterns. EMDR helps your brain process what's been overwhelming without having to narrate every detail.
Brainspotting — For men who struggle to "talk about it" or feel everything "just shuts off." Brainspotting accesses trauma stored beneath words.
Flash Technique — A gentle method for reducing emotional intensity. Effective for men who fear being flooded or overwhelmed by feelings.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (when appropriate) — For men approved by a medical prescriber, KAP can help access emotions that feel walled off. Learn about KA-EMDR for stuck trauma or traditional KAP for deeper work.
Relational Trauma Work — We build trust slowly. You don't need to open up all at once. We work moment-by-moment with anger, shame, shutdown, and the patterns that keep you isolated.
What it feels like to work together
The pace is slower than most men expect, which sometimes lands as a relief and sometimes lands as friction. Some of you will be ready to get to it and want to move faster than I'll move; that's worth saying out loud when it happens, and we'll talk about why. The slowness isn't precious. It's that the parts of you that have been holding everything together for years didn't learn to do that overnight, and they don't unlearn it because someone in a room asks them to.
You can show up angry, shut down, confused, or numb. We start where you actually are, not where the script says you should be. If you can't find words, we work with what your body and your reactions are telling us until words show up. They usually do.
I'm a gay therapist for men in Seattle. Nothing you bring about desire, sexuality, shame, or the fear that being fully yourself will cost you belonging is going to unsettle me. That lived experience shapes how I work with any man whose sense of self has required negotiation—whether you're queer or straight, whether it's about sexuality, masculinity, or just the basic human struggle of feeling fundamentally misunderstood. I also offer specialized LGBTQ+ affirming therapy.
What men's therapy can help you do
Through this work, men often begin to:
- Understand your emotions instead of fearing them
- Regulate anger and reactivity without suppressing everything
- Stay present in conflict instead of shutting down or exploding
- Communicate what you're actually feeling instead of withdrawing
- Feel closer to your partner and kids instead of distant
- Access the full range of emotions without numbing or flooding
- Soften shame and develop self-compassion
- Know who you are underneath the performance
- Ask for help without feeling weak
FOR MEN IN THEIR 20s AND EARLY 30s:
You don't need to wait until you've "really fucked up your life" to deserve help.
A lot of younger men come to therapy because:
- They're repeating patterns they saw growing up and want to stop now
- They feel behind everyone else and don't know how to catch up
- First serious relationship is bringing up everything they've avoided
- They just came out and their family rejected them
- They're drowning in shame they can't name
- They're smart, capable, functional—and completely numb inside
- They have no idea who they are outside of what others expect
The patterns you came in carrying aren't done forming yet. That's actually the reason to do this work now rather than waiting fifteen years and trying to undo more of them. There's no minimum suffering threshold for therapy being worth it.
The work is the same whether you're 25 or 55: understanding what happened, feeling what you've been avoiding, and building a life that actually feels like yours.
What begins to shift
Often the people around you register it before you do. A partner says you're easier to be around lately, and you didn't notice anything had changed. Your kid asks you something they wouldn't usually ask. A coworker stops walking carefully around you. The reaction that used to take a whole day to come down from takes an hour, then ten minutes, then doesn't fully land in the first place.
Internally what eases is harder to describe. The closest most men get to naming it is some version of: there's more room in here. The pressure that was constant isn't constant anymore. Things still happen. Hard things still hit hard. But you're not bracing against your own life as the default state.
Common Questions
Do I have to talk about feelings the whole time?
No. We might talk about situations, relationships, decisions, or patterns—and feelings show up naturally in that context. You don't need to perform emotional fluency. We build that capacity together over time, at a pace that doesn't feel forced.
What if I don't know how to put this stuff into words?
That's completely normal. Many men come in not knowing how to name what they're feeling—just that something's wrong. We work with what's happening in your body, your reactions, your relationships. The words come later.
How long does therapy take?
It depends on what you're working on. Some men come for a few months during a crisis or transition. Others stay longer to work through trauma, relationship patterns, or identity questions. We'll figure out together what makes sense for you.
What if I'm not sure this is "bad enough" to need therapy?
If something in your life isn't working—if you're overwhelmed, reactive, shut down, or just tired of pushing through everything—that's enough. You don't need a diagnosis or a crisis for this to be worth doing.
Will you tell me I'm doing everything wrong?
No. This isn't about judgment or lectures. It's about understanding what's actually happening inside you and building new options. I'm direct, but I'm not here to make you feel worse about yourself.
What if I've tried therapy before and it didn't work?
A lot of men have. Maybe it felt too slow, too vague, or too focused on talking without anything changing. This work is different—we use EMDR, Brainspotting, and somatic approaches that don't require you to narrate your entire history. If previous therapy didn't land, we can talk about why and try something different.
I saw you're a gay therapist. What's it like working with straight men?
A big part of my practice is straight men. Sessions are direct, grounded, and practical—we talk about anger, relationships, work stress, sex, whatever's actually on the table. Your concerns get taken seriously, not filtered through someone else's framework.
Do you do men's group therapy?
No. I only do individual therapy—1:1 sessions, not groups. Men's group therapy in Seattle is offered through several practices and organizations (Mankind Project I-Groups, various therapy-run process groups); a search for "men's group therapy seattle" will surface current options. Group work and 1:1 therapy do different things—some men benefit from both.
I keep snapping at my wife/kids—can therapy help me stop?
Yes. Anger that's leaking onto the people you love is one of the most common reasons men come in. The work isn't about clamping down on the reaction—it's about understanding what's underneath. Most men who snap aren't just angry; they're overwhelmed, exhausted, or carrying old material that's never been processed. When we work with the root, the reactions get smaller. We also build practical skills for the moments you can feel it building.
I feel numb or nothing inside—is that depression?
Maybe—but probably not the way you're thinking. Depression in men often doesn't look like sadness. It can look like numbness, flatness, going through the motions, finding nothing enjoyable anymore, or staying just busy enough to not have to feel anything. Sometimes there's a clinical depression underneath; sometimes it's the shutdown pattern that comes from years of suppressing emotion. We figure out which is which, and the work is different for each.
Do you work with men dealing with trauma?
Yes—and many of the men I see don't initially call it trauma. They come in for anger, for relationship problems, for not being able to sleep, for feeling stuck. Underneath, there's often unprocessed material: childhood material, a divorce, a death, an injury, things that happened in adolescence and got pushed down. I'm EMDRIA Certified in EMDR and trained in Brainspotting and Flash Technique—these are the methods I use when trauma is part of what we're working with.
How I think about this work → Approach