What Therapy Has Done to My Head

And how it transformed my heart and soul.

For more than two decades, I worked as a psychotherapist and couples counselor. This gave me an extraordinary window into the private lives of men and women — how we love, how we protect ourselves, what makes intimacy flourish, and what causes it to quietly disappear.

I’ve worked with individuals and couples navigating love, loss, attachment, communication, sexuality, betrayal, longing, conflict, and the complicated business of becoming fully known by another human being.

And after thousands of hours spent talking about relationships, one thing became abundantly clear:

Human beings are magnificent. And we’re also completely fucking baffling.

Those years profoundly shaped my writing and research. Much of what eventually became my latest book, Magnificent Men: How Men Are Undervalued and How Worshipping and Being Worshipped Can Bring You the Hot and Holy Love You Desire, grew from questions I encountered again and again in the therapy room: What do men need in order to feel deeply valued? How can women sustain deep emotional intimacy with men without losing themselves in the process? What happens when admiration disappears from intimate relationships? Why do people hunger to be cherished yet struggle to receive it? And what allows two people to create a love that is simultaneously passionate, reverent, playful, erotic, and enduring?

Apparently, I had enough thoughts about those questions to write a book that could double as a home-defense weapon.

As the manuscript grew, it became obvious that I could no longer be a full-time therapist and a full-time author. And I didn’t want to half-ass either. I decided to devote myself to the work I believed could help the greatest number of people because, frankly, I’m generous that way.

It was difficult to step away from my full-time therapy practice, but you never know — I may return to it someday.

My Time on the Couch

I’ve been in therapy a lot longer than I’ve been a therapist. Why? Because I’m constantly finding new ways to use what I learn in therapy to live more fully and have exceptional human experiences.

People define “exceptional human experiences” in a number of different ways, but I define them as getting high as a kite without drugs. It’s delighting in the ordinariness of a Tuesday one moment and the extraordinariness of a first kiss the next.

Therapy has helped me understand myself, certainly. But more importantly, it has helped me experience my own life more deeply — to risk more, love more, notice more, feel more, and become increasingly willing to be fully known. It’s also given me the courage to worship someone and, in return, allow them to worship me right back. Being fully seen like that — and completely seeing another person — is one of the deepest forms of intimate love and also makes for the most profound friendships.

My Relationships With Men

My understanding of relationships has never come exclusively from the therapy room. It’s also been shaped by men I have loved, befriended, admired, cherished, and yes — worshipped.

Those relationships have given me opportunities to experience firsthand the things I now write about: the profound difference it can make when a man feels genuinely seen, appreciated, respected, delighted in, and loved for who he is — and what it is like to watch that man expand and light up.

My Relationships With Women

I’ve been just as fortunate when it comes to having great women in my life. Women have honored me by allowing me to hold their hands through some of the fiercest battles anyone could ever face. While my heart has ached as I watched them walk through fire, their courage has been awe-inspiring.

As I’ve watched these magnificent men and women pass through my life, some have eventually left because their time here was through. I’ve had the privilege of accompanying some of them all the way to the end. And I watched as their souls passed — and as their souls shook the heavens.

My Next Chapter

I’ve had enough extraordinary chapters in my life to build an encyclopedia.

But I have a feeling the greatest one has only just begun.

Part of it is already being written in Magnificent Men. Part of it is unfolding in the work I’m doing now. And part of it belongs to the life I haven’t lived yet — the beautiful men and women I haven’t met, the love I haven’t experienced, the places I haven’t gone, and the things I don’t yet know enough to imagine.

That may be what therapy has ultimately done to my head.

It’s made me less interested in controlling the story and much more interested in being fully awake while it happens.

I have absolutely no idea what happens next.

What I do know is that I plan to find people I can delight — and who can delight me in return.

Song Recommendation:
— “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” Elton John, 1972