As Christmas nears, many of my single clients want Santa to bring them the perfect relationship and leave it under the tree (nicely-wrapped, of course). As a psychotherapist, I am happy to play cupid, but I insist on being a cupid based in reality. In…
For many of us LGBT San Diegans, winter and spring are the perfect times to go to Palm Springs: the weather is great and it’s just far enough away to feel like we’ve had an adventure. I was thinking recently of what it would be…
While I am not a member of a 12 step program, I find the 12 steps are useful for anyone struggling with an addictiion. In reality, most of us have some kind of addictive or compulsive behavior that interferes with our happiness. In his book…
For several years, people have asked me to write a column about the transgender (aka “trans”) community. As a cis male, I deferred. Instead, I asked trans friends to write something, but, no dice. Last week, a trans client said, “Why don’t you write a…
Maybe bad news does come in threes. Recently a friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer, another friend had an emergency C-section and the baby didn’t survive, and another friend is struggling with crystal meth. When things fall apart how can we comfort and…
A key ingredient of a happy life is how we handle fear. Fear is inevitable; it’s a part of life. So, what are we going to do with our fear? Most of us are neither encouraged to identify our fears nor are we encouraged to ask…
You might think with so much ugliness, cruelty and fear in the world, that optimism would be foolish or naïve. Nope. The ugliness has always been there; but, now, it’s there for us to see it. These days, the ugliness is coming out of the…
Plenty of people have focused on bringing “sexy” back. But, perhaps it’s time to dig a little deeper. What about romance? You know, that desire to be wined, dined, paid attention to, courted, wooed (I like that old-fashioned word). I hear from a lot of…
One of my clients, a divorced businessman, has a 16-year-old son “Evan”. Evan just told his dad that he’s gay. He said it very confidently. To Evan, there appears to be no doubt about this. But his dad wonders. The plot thickens… It seems that Evan…
Dear Michael: I am a happily-married woman with a young child, a great job and loving friends. There’s only one problem, I think I’m bisexual, and I don’t know what to do about it. What do I do with my feelings for other women? I…
