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, bingeing when the restriction finally breaks, or building rules around “clean eating.” 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 feel obligated 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, and go about their day without the barrage of negative body image thoughts.
They also want to feel safe and accepted by the queer community. 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 leave behind the parts that feel hierarchical and toxic. They want to stop feeling like they need to achieve or perform to be accepted.
This work is about learning to listen to your body instead of fighting it, letting go of what doesn't serve you, and finally quieting the noise in your head. 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's within reach.
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.
My approach is grounded in Health at Every Size. In practice, that means we work toward eating in response to your body's actual signals rather than rules, guilt, or compensation. A big part of that is restoring trust in hunger and fullness cues, along with other signals your body is constantly sending (emotions, energy levels, stress) that diet culture and years of override have made harder to hear. Movement becomes something you do because it's enjoyable and fits your life, not because you're chasing a specific physique or compensating for what you ate. The work is about building a relationship with food and your body that doesn't require constant management.
That means getting curious about the parts of you that have been working overtime managing food, exercise, and how you look, and exploring what they're really protecting you from. We might look at where these patterns started: early messages about your body, your sexuality, or what it meant to be acceptable. Or we'll slow 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, get curious about what's underneath, and find alternative choices that feel more aligned with your values and your recovery.
Comparing yourself to other guys at the gym is a good example. 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 have the option to make different, more informed choices, instead of running the old pattern on autopilot.
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, Atypical Anorexia, Bulimia, 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.
