Body image & eating disorder therapy for gay men
Sessions online across ma, me, NY & FL
Sound like you?
You know this takes up more headspace than it should.
You open Grindr and the first thing you notice isn't a face. It's a torso. Or the absence of one in your own photos. You workout most days, and still feel like you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. At brunch, at the beach, at Pride, you're scanning bodies without meaning to.
Maybe you've cycled through cutting, bulking, tracking, restricting. You tell yourself it's about health and discipline, and sometimes you believe it. But underneath, it's more like: if I can just fix this one thing, I'll finally feel okay. But the bar keeps moving and the relief never comes.
If you've spent time in gay spaces, you already know how much emphasis gets put on how you look. Bodies are currency. You've watched guys get more attention, more matches, more invitations because of how they look, and at some point you stopped questioning whether that was fair. If you're done paying into a system that was never fair to begin with, you're in the right place.
What life could feel like instead.
Most of the men I work with aren't looking for a dramatic transformation. They just want to go to the gym because it feels good, not because they owe it to themselves or need to fix something. They want to eat dinner without the mental math running in the background, be on a date and actually be curious about the person across from them, wake up and have their body be the last thing on their mind.
A lot of them also want to feel like they actually belong in the community they came out to be part of. To walk into a gay bar or the gym without comparing their bodies to everyone else in the space. To take the parts of gay culture that feel genuinely good and not get pulled into the rest. To stop feeling like their worth in those spaces is something they have to earn.
That's what this work is really about. Getting your headspace back, instead of chasing a bar that keeps moving. Feeling like yourself in your body, in your relationships, and in your own community. That kind of change is real, and with the right support, it can happen.
Meet your therapist.
Hey, I'm Matt - a gay psychologist based in Boston. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on body image in gay and bisexual men, and my practice is specifically focused on this work. Most therapists who work with men haven't thought deeply about the intersection of gay identity, body image, and anxiety. This specific combination of doctoral-level training, research expertise, and lived experience as a gay man - combined with a practice dedicated entirely to this work - is rare.
You won't have to educate me, explain why gay spaces feel the way they do, or wonder if you'll be accepted. We can just get into it. Learn more about how I work.
Here’s what we’ll do together
Where the deeper work happens.
We'll get curious about the parts of you that have been working overtime managing food, exercise, and how you look, and explore what they're really protecting you from.
That might mean looking at where these patterns started: early messages about your body, your sexuality, or what it meant to be acceptable. It might mean slowing down the moments that feel automatic, like the urge to restrict after a weekend of eating, or the compulsive check in the mirror before leaving the house, and getting curious about what's underneath.
Take comparing yourself to other guys at the gym. We'll trace that back. Whose approval felt conditional on how you looked. When you first learned that your body was something to be evaluated, ranked, or corrected. As that history becomes clearer, the comparing starts to make more sense, it's not really about the guy next to you, it's an old fear of not measuring up that started somewhere specific. Once that connection is made, you'll have the option to make different, more informed choices, instead of running the old pattern on autopilot.
I pay close attention to the specific pressures gay men carry: the hypervisibility of bodies in queer spaces, the way apps have gamified attraction, the internalized messages about what kind of body is desirable or worthy.
My approach is grounded in Health at Every Size, which means we're not chasing a number on a scale. We're steering you toward health-promoting behaviors, like intuitive eating and joyful movement, regardless of your body size or physique.
Questions? I’ve got answers.
Frequently asked questions
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No, because the research is clear that dieting and weight-cycling - NOT body fat - are leading causes of eating disorders and health-related issues. I practice from a weight-neutral, non-diet approach, meaning I don’t treat bodies as problems to fix, but help clients build a more peaceful relationship with food and their body. While I can support clients in improving health markers in collaboration with a treatment team, I don’t provide care aimed at changing body size or appearance.
If you’re curious about why so many eating disorder professionals take this stance, I’ve written more about it here: Debunking the Myth that HAES is Anti-Healthand Why Many ED Professionals Take a Weight-Neutral Approach.
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I specialize in working with Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Orthorexia, and OSFED, as well as folks with body image issues and a history of disordered eating that has never been formally diagnosed or treated. I am not trained in working with ARFID, Pica, or Rumination Disorder.
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No problem. You don't need a formal diagnosis to start therapy, and during the intake process I will conduct a thorough assessment. If it seems that you may benefit from a higher level of care, I will provide you with referrals and help you get connected.
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I am trained in several modalities, but the two I use most often when treating eating disorders are Internal Family Systems and Psychodynamic Therapy.
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Absolutely! And if you don't yet have a team, I'll be happy to provide you with referrals for a psychiatrist, registered dietitian, recovery coach, and/or primary care physician.
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Disordered eating refers to a range of irregular or harmful eating behaviors — things like chronic restriction, binge eating, compulsive calorie counting, or using exercise to compensate for food — that significantly impact your quality of life but may not meet the full clinical criteria for a diagnosed eating disorder. An eating disorder is a formal diagnosis like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or orthorexia. The line between the two can be blurry, and the distinction matters less than whether the patterns are causing you distress. Both are worth taking seriously, and both are things I work with.
