The Clinicians
About Therapy with Anthony Chan
Your Partner Asked You to Come Here
Someone else started this. Your partner did the reading, made the case, and asked you to go find a therapist, and for some men that request arrives with a deadline attached to it.
So you’re on this page without having chosen to be, reading it with your guard up.
That’s a fair way to arrive. Most of the men I work with spend a good part of the first appointment deciding whether any of this is worth their time, and I’d rather they make that call with information than with a guess about what happens in a therapy room.
Bring Your Skepticism in with You
Before I moved into mental health care, I spent more than 15 years in the corporate world and earned an MBA. That’s the world you’re calling from, and I am not a stranger to it.
Men who function well at work distrust the process more than the idea. They want to know what happens in the hour, what it aims at, and how they would tell whether it works.
Those are the right questions, and I answer them plainly. You can hold on to the doubt while we work. It does not get in the way of the hour.
What You’ll Actually Do in a Session
You bring what happened. We work out what you wanted from it, what you did instead, and what you want to do differently when the same thing comes around again.
Some of that is practical. Better words, better timing, a plan for the conversation you’ve been putting off.
Some of it goes further down, into vulnerability, identity, and patterns that were in place long before you met your partner. I stay active while we do it, which means I ask direct questions and say what I notice rather than waiting for you to fill the silence.
What that adds up to depends on what you find.
You’ll Know Where You Stand
Men who do this work land in one of two places. Some find their way back toward their partner with a different way of being in the relationship. Others come to understand themselves well enough to make a real decision about what comes next.
Both of those beat the version where the same argument repeats and nobody ever says why.
About Anthony Chan, MS, MBA, LSMHC
I work with men and couples on relationships, communication, intimacy, sexuality, anxiety, burnout, and the pressure that comes with carrying a lot of responsibility.
My work draws on Emotionally Focused Therapy, Gottman-informed strategies, and solution-focused approaches. What that looks like in the room is practical and direct, with close attention to what is happening emotionally underneath the problem.
The men I sit with are used to being the one who has the answer. Therapy is one of the few rooms where the answer gets built in the hour instead of brought in with you.
Rule It Out from the Inside
Deciding therapy isn’t for you is a legitimate outcome. Make that call on something you have actually seen.
If you’re going to rule this out, rule it out from inside one appointment instead of from outside one.
Tell Us Where You’d Like This to Move
You don’t need the whole thing figured out before you write to us.
Some people know exactly which kind of therapy they want. Others know only that something isn’t working anymore, and that’s enough to start with.
Tell us what’s been going on, what you’ve already tried, and what you’d like to feel different. We’ll think it through with you and point you toward the therapist and the approach that fit.
You’ve done plenty of understanding already, and now it’s worth finding out what gets it moving.