For over 30 years, I’ve worked almost exclusively with gay men as a psychotherapist and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, as well as a life, career, and executive coach. Over time, I’ve helped clients navigate not only relationships and identity, but also high-stakes professional situations where reputation, authority, and livelihood are on the line. In recent … Read more
As a long-term specialist in gay men’s mental health—now in my 34th year of practice as a psychotherapist and coach—I’ve worked with individuals, couples, and more complex relationship structures across a wide range of life circumstances. Over time, one pattern has emerged more often than expected: the unique challenges faced by gay male couples who … Read more
After more than three decades as a psychotherapist and coach specializing in gay men’s mental health, I have observed a recurring developmental transition among accomplished men in midlife and later life. Many reach their late fifties or early sixties having built careers, relationships, and financial stability, only to discover that the drive which once propelled … Read more
A developmental view—from good student to elder authority, and why the path often looks different for us When psychologists talk about human development, they don’t just mean childhood. Instead, they are referring to lifespan development: the way identity, purpose, intimacy, competence, and meaning evolve from youth through old age. The work of Erik Erikson, Harry … Read more
Gay Men and Overcoming Our Unconscious Barriers to Success By Ken Howard, LCSW, CST In so much of my work with clients, we are battling a whole list of what I call “unconscious barriers” to our own progress and success. We have inner conflicts that make us take two steps forward but then one step … Read more
Gay Executive Coaching and The Dark Side of Ambition: Navigating Toxic Competition in the Workplace I primarily serve as a licensed psychotherapist in California who has specialized in working with gay men as individuals or in relationships for over 32 years now in 2025. I’m also a nationally Certified AASECT Sex Therapist, and retired graduate … Read more
For a Job, For a Guy, For a Change: Gay Men and the Decision to Relocate Over the course of my long (29 years in 2021) career as a gay men’s specialist therapist and life/career/relationship coach, I’ve had a certain list of topics that guys come to me with regularly. One of these is someone … Read more
For over 24 years, my specialty as a therapist and life/business coach has been working with gay men. For many topics, treating or coaching a gay man is very similar to how a woman (straight or gay) or a straight man would be. However, “cultural competency” in working with gay men demands that the provider … Read more
Gay Men and the Mental Health Aspects of Working from Home If you do a Google search on “tips on working from home,” you find almost too many returns. It’s overwhelming. I did a survey of them informally, and tried to find the “best of” those lists. But what’s missing from them is where I … Read more
Shrink at the Movies: Loving “Love, Simon” from a Gay Men’s Mental Health Perspective In my work as a licensed psychotherapist and life/business coach specializing in gay men and therapy for gay male couples for over 26 years, I blog frequently on topics on LGBTQ+ mental health in general, and gay men’s therapy in particular, … Read more
