Episode 152: Gay Men and Internal Family Systems: The Different Parts of You

Ken teaches about the TFID (Type, Frequency, Intensity, Duration) model for managing mental health challenges for gay men such as depression, anxiety, and others, with practical exercises to bring symptom relief. 

Ken discusses Netflix's "Monster: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" and its themes of notoriety, abuse, and healing, and applies these in the context of gay male adult sexual trauma and abuse survivors. 

Ken provides education on how gay male relationships (couples or polycules) can establish ground rules agreements for Consensual Non-Monogamy using the Who What When Where Why structure. 

Ken teaches about supporting gay men leaving religion and reclaiming their identity with secular alternatives, free of religious abuse and embracing secular solace or an affirmative tradition that works for them. 

Ken gives tips and "modules" for coping with election anxiety in this 2024 election season, and how to cope with anxiety symptoms, increase self-empowerment, and practice compassionate self-support. 

Ken describes how IFS, Internal Family Systems, a model of evidence-based psychotherapy, can apply to gay men to help you integrate the different parts of you into a cohesive, confident sense of Self. 

Ken gives tips for gay men's dating on what gay men complain about their dates to their therapist or their friends, and what to do about them. 

Ken gives guidance on how gay men in relationships can discuss whether to have kids, and their options for doing so. 

Ken discusses the subtle and insidious ways that religious moralism undermines professional mental health services delivery (psychotherapy) for the broader LGBTQ+ community and more specifically for gay men, and how to counter this. 

Ken reviews the psychological, clinical dynamics of money management, planning aspects of your financial life, and how to talk to the people in your life to reduce financial anxiety and support long-term financial stability.