About Working Together
As a queer man in long-term recovery, I don’t just believe change is possible — I’ve lived it.
I know what it’s like to struggle with shame, addiction, anxiety, loneliness, low self-worth, and the exhausting feeling of hiding parts of yourself in order to feel accepted, loved, or safe.
I also know that healing rarely comes from simply trying harder, “fixing” ourselves, or finding the perfect coping strategy. More often, meaningful change happens through relationship — through experiencing what it’s like to be seen honestly, understood more deeply, and accepted without judgement.
The relationship between therapist and client is central to how I work.
The Healing Power of Relationship
Many of us carry wounds that happened in relationship — criticism, rejection, abandonment, emotional neglect, conditional love, bullying, shaming, or feeling unseen. Over time, these experiences can shape how we relate not only to other people, but to ourselves. We may begin hiding, people-pleasing, masking, isolating, using substances or compulsive behaviours to cope, or believing there’s something fundamentally “wrong” with us.
Therapy can become a space where these patterns begin to appear in the relationship between us — not because either of us has done something wrong, but because we often bring familiar ways of protecting ourselves into new relationships too.
The relationship itself develops gradually. As trust grows, we may begin noticing together what happens when you feel vulnerable, exposed, dependent, misunderstood or challenged. You might sometimes feel irritated or disappointed with me, disagree with something I’ve said, or feel that I haven’t properly understood you.
You’re allowed to tell me. You can question my interpretation, disagree with me or say that something hasn’t landed well. I may sometimes misunderstand what you mean, make an incorrect assumption or phrase something badly. I won’t always get everything right.
Talking openly about those moments can help us understand what has happened and find a way through it together. Difficulties between us don’t automatically mean therapy has failed. They may reflect patterns that also appear in other relationships, while creating an opportunity to experience disagreement or misunderstanding without being judged, controlled or rejected.
Challenge in therapy should never mean being criticised, told what to do or having your choices taken away from you. My role is to help you look more closely at what may be happening, while respecting that your decisions, boundaries and pace remain your own.
Many of the ways we learn to protect ourselves begin as ingenious survival strategies in childhood. I explore this idea further in Healing Isn't About Becoming Someone Else.
How I Work as a Therapist
I don’t believe therapy should feel cold, clinical, or emotionally distant.
While the focus will always remain on you and your process, I’m also not a therapist who hides completely behind silence or neutrality. Where appropriate and therapeutically helpful, I may use some gentle self-disclosure or bring more of my humanity into the room. In my experience, healing often happens through authentic human connection, not simply analysis.
Working with Men & LGBTQ+ Clients
As an autistic therapist, I also understand what it can feel like to move through the world feeling different, misunderstood, overstimulated, or as though you’re somehow getting “being human” wrong. Many of the people I work with have spent years masking parts of themselves in order to survive, fit in, or avoid rejection.
I work with men and LGBTQ+ clients struggling with addiction, codependency, shame, self-esteem, anxiety, intimacy, identity, and relationships. Many clients come to therapy feeling emotionally exhausted from constantly performing, coping, or trying to hold themselves together alone.
Understanding the Patterns Beneath the Struggle
Over time, drugs, alcohol, chemsex, hook-ups, porn, work, perfectionism, caretaking, emotional withdrawal, or people-pleasing can become ways of managing painful feelings and unmet needs. Often these coping mechanisms once helped us survive, even when they later begin causing suffering.
Part of therapy is developing enough safety to begin understanding those patterns with greater honesty and compassion.
Understanding the pattern is an important beginning, but insight alone doesn't usually create lasting change. Often, part of us genuinely wants life to be different while another part still depends on the old way of coping because it feels familiar, protective or safe. Therapy helps us understand that conflict so change becomes about more than simply trying harder.
A Space Where You Don't Have to Hide
I know you’re probably not going to walk into the first session ready to reveal every hidden part of yourself — and that’s completely okay. Trust takes time.
Many people worry that they'll arrive at therapy and not know what they're supposed to say. They wonder whether they'll be expected to talk about feelings they can't quite identify, explain exactly what's wrong, or somehow know how therapy is meant to work.
You don't need to have everything figured out before you come.
Part of therapy is making sense of things together. You don't have to arrive with a clear explanation, the right words, or a complete understanding of yourself. We can take our time exploring whatever feels important, at a pace that feels manageable for you.
Nor will you be expected to talk about painful experiences or reveal parts of yourself before you're ready. Therapy isn't about pushing you into emotional exposure. It's about creating enough safety and trust that, over time, sharing becomes something that feels possible rather than something you feel pressured to do.
But gradually, therapy can become a place where you no longer feel you have to perform, hide, or carry everything alone. A place where shame begins to loosen, where self-understanding deepens, and where a more authentic version of yourself can begin to emerge.
Moving Towards Self-Worth, Connection & Authenticity
I’m not the kind of therapist who simply sits silently and nods. I’ll ask thoughtful questions and help us explore patterns together. At times, we may also explore your past and childhood experiences to better understand the wounds and survival strategies still shaping your present life.
But therapy isn’t only about understanding pain.
It’s also about building a different relationship with yourself:
one grounded in self-worth rather than shame
connection rather than isolation
authenticity rather than masking
boundaries rather than people-pleasing
self-compassion rather than self-attack
Over time, this work can help quieten the constant mental noise, reduce compulsive behaviours, improve relationships, strengthen emotional resilience, and help you feel more at home within yourself.
My hope is not that you become “perfect”, but that you begin to feel more fully human, more connected, and more able to live as your authentic self.
