Men's Issues
Support for men who feel cut off from emotions, intimacy, or purpose. We examine social training and rebuild strength grounded in relationship, not performance.
Definitions
Masculinity, in its healthiest form, is relational.
It's grounded in care, presence (or "being there"), and responsibility to others.
But the versions of masculinity most often modeled and rewarded in our culture are built around dominance, isolation, control, and emotional stoicism. And it starts so early.
Boys are taught to hide pain, to separate from their feelings, to dominate rather than relate. And in doing so, they create a deep loneliness that most men never name, but carry with them in every part of their lives.
Many men carry guilt and regret for the ways they’ve hurt those they love. They don’t know how to talk about these feelings without an immediate sense of exile or shame. Others walk around with so much unacknowledged grief that it calcifies into defensiveness or control.
These are all wounds of disconnection, and they won't heal without a serious level of commitment to deconstructing how we were socialized.
Symptoms
Disconnection shows up in quiet ways.
Some men feel flat - like they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, but can’t feel much about it. Others live with a constant low-level panic: over things like money, career, sex, aging, or being good enough. Some get swallowed by self-criticism and still feel like they’re falling short. Others swing the opposite way, puffing up just to make it through the day.
But underneath all of it is often the same wound: a fear that if anyone saw what’s really going on inside, they’d leave.
Many men struggle to name their emotions in real-time.
You might not know what you’re feeling until it erupts: rage, withdrawal, shutdown, or until it leaks out in sarcasm, silence, or self-sabotage. Sometimes you don’t know anything is wrong until your partner says they feel alone in the relationship. Sometimes you’re the one who feels alone, and you don't know how to say it.
Other symptoms come through the body:
Tightness in the chest, shallow breath, stomach pain, sexual disconnection. A sense of urgency that doesn’t let up. Or exhaustion that doesn’t go away.
These symptoms are often the residue of never having had a safe place to feel vulnerable.
Never having learned how to grieve. And never having known, deep down, that you are allowed to be held.
Why Does It Show Up?
When men are asked to show up with emotional depth and presence, many can't. They don't know how, and they have never been given the tools to do so.
The cultural myth of the "Alpha Male" continues to feed a distorted idea of strength. Rooted in outdated science and kept alive by those profiting from fear and insecurity, this myth tells men that they must remain unshakable and in control. But disconnection and rigidity are not and have Never been signs of inner strength. A wooden bow isn't strong because it is rigid. It's strong because of its flexibility.
In her book, "Will to Change," Bell Hooks offers a deepening perspective: many men grow up sensing the distance that women keep from them because of safety.
Women inherently learn to be cautious - to cross the street and avoid eye contact - because that's how you survive. That distance is justified. Yet it hurts. Men feel it. They grow up internalizing it, often interpreting it as rejection or shame. And when the only model for relating to other men is also distant or violent, the isolation deepens.
Even mothers, trying to protect themselves in a world shaped by male violence, pass these boundaries down unconsciously, and can keep their sons at arm’s length.
Without warm, loving role models, many boys grow up believing they are inherently dangerous or unlovable. The loneliness compounds. And this cold, disconnected world teaches men to embody what they were afraid they already were.
The experience of trying to connect and being dismissed, the hurt of being seen as a threat rather than a person, the feeling of being shut out - it’s all real.
But without context, that pain can curdle into resentment and violence. Seeing the whole picture (including why those boundaries exist in the first place) is crucial to breaking the cycle. And the work of repair doesn't begin with asking women to risk more. It begins with men having these conversations with each other and committing to healing, together.
Why Now?
At some point, the old strategies stop working.
Maybe you’ve started to feel the cost of always holding it together. How it wears down your body, flattens your relationships, or leaves you feeling unknown, even to yourself. What once helped you stay in control starts getting in the way of connection, of rest, of being known. The men I work with often arrive to a quiet recognition that something has to change.
It's almost always a slow build.
A growing discomfort. A sense of distance in your relationships. A feeling you can’t name but keep trying to outrun. Or it might come fast, with a specific rupture or turning point.
There’s no one right moment to do this work.
But for many, the timing becomes clear when the pain of staying the same starts to outweigh the fear of trying something different. It's up to you to decide when to stop carrying all of it alone.
How Therapy Can Help
Let's learn to lay that armor down. We start by creating enough safety in the relationship to allow anger, grief, confusion, or shame to exist without being pathologized.
I use IFS to explore the parts of the self that have been exiled - the parts that were shamed, silenced, or taught to protect at all costs. We get to know them, gently.
Somatic work helps bring attention to where the body holds this tension: where the breath gets stuck, and where the shoulders brace. We listen not just to what is said, but to how the body is speaking.
Gestalt therapy allows us to stay in the present moment, notice when disconnection shows up in real time, meet it with curiosity, and learn how to communicate effectively with others.
When relevant, ERP can support men in facing the fears that hold them back from intimacy, expression, or presence.
Our Work Together
Let's rebuild and strengthen your relationships with your body, with others, and with the parts of yourself that have been hidden away. We practice feeling without needing to fix. We explore how old narratives shaped the way someone sees themselves, and start to write new ones: narratives grounded in community, relationship, and accountability. How do you want to show up in the world?
The path isn’t always clean or clear. But it is real.
Masculinity can be relational. It can be connected. And when it is, it becomes part of what helps heal not just the self, but the world we’re part of.
