High competence, quiet depletion.
Depth-oriented individual therapy for men navigating depression, relationships, identity, and the pressures that rarely get named.
Free 15-min · In-person Palo Alto or telehealth ·
Men learn early that managing the situation is better than having a feeling about it. That's not a character flaw. It's an adaptation that eventually costs more than it saves.
“Most men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward others. The problem is to be the opposite.”— Søren Kierkegaard
If you're searching for men's therapy in Palo Alto, some of this may land:
High competence, quiet depletion. You manage everything — and feel hollow about it.
The things that were supposed to feel like enough don't feel like enough. You can't justify the emptiness.
Relationships where you show up logistically but feel emotionally absent. You know it, and you don't know how to change it.
Anger that feels disproportionate. Or numbness that doesn't. Either way, something is being suppressed.
Questions about who you are when the work stops defining you — questions you haven't answered.
A particular loneliness: surrounded by people, trusted by many, and still not quite known.
Men are often conditioned to manage rather than explore — to fix the problem, not feel it. This creates a particular kind of suffering: high competence, quiet depletion. The questions that matter most go unasked for years.
Depth-oriented therapy for men is not about reframing or learning communication skills. It is about making contact with what has been avoided — the grief beneath the anger, the longing beneath the withdrawal, the parts of oneself that were learned to be unacceptable.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” — Carl Jung
This is the territory of depth-oriented work: not self-improvement, but self-recognition. Understanding, rather than correcting, what's been organized inside.
This is the work: not becoming a different person, but having more access to who you already are.
“The parts that went underground had a reason to go there. The work is understanding that reason — and gradually giving them somewhere to come home to.”
My approach with men draws on Relational Gestalt therapy, psychoanalytic thinking, and somatic awareness. It is not a curriculum. It does not involve worksheets or homework. What it involves is two people paying close attention to what actually arises — the defenses, the habits of avoidance, the moments when something real surfaces and then gets quickly covered over again.
Inside a caterpillar's body are clusters of cells called imaginal buds. They contain the blueprint for a butterfly. While the caterpillar goes about its business, these cells, deep inside, are already imagining flight. The caterpillar's immune system tries to destroy them — not unlike the way our own defenses try to suppress our evolving elements. Once conditions are right, the buds link up, and something new becomes possible. The Greek word for butterfly is “psyche.” That's not a coincidence.
Not more emotion or less — but more access to what is actually present, and more choice about what to do with it.
The capacity for genuine contact — with a partner, a child, a friend — tends to increase as the inner life becomes more available.
The exhaustion of maintaining the performance is significant. As the performance becomes less necessary, energy is freed.
A real conversation, not a form. Low-pressure, no commitment. Many men find this the hardest step, and also the most important one.
An unhurried intake. Your history, what brings you here, how you make sense of things.
Regular 50-minute sessions, in-person in Palo Alto or via telehealth throughout California.
I know this territory from multiple directions. Depth work with men isn't about becoming a different person. It's about having more access to who you already are — and more choice about what you do with what you find.
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Most men who come to therapy are functioning well by external standards. Depth-oriented therapy is not for people who can't cope — it's for people who want to understand themselves more fully.
Most men I work with aren't accustomed to this kind of conversation. Part of the work is developing the capacity for it. We go at whatever pace your system allows.
Yes. A significant portion of my couples work involves exactly this dynamic. We work with what's happening in the room, not just talking about it.
Yes — in-network with Aetna, Wellfleet, and Stanford University SHIP. Superbills for other plans.
Yes. Telehealth available throughout California. In-person at 667 Lytton Ave, Suite #9, Palo Alto.
Men's Issues Therapy · Palo Alto
A free 15-minute consultation is a low-pressure way to see if this is the right fit.
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