Why not just pick one model and stick to it?

Because the man sitting in front of me is not one problem. A framework that is excellent at conflict in a couples hour is not the framework that gets at why a thirty-eight-year-old still cannot tell his mother no. I was trained in several deliberately, and I choose between them out loud rather than quietly.

Will you tell me which approach we are using?

Yes, if you want to know. Plenty of people do not care what it is called and only care whether the hour is useful, which is fair. But I will never do something to you that I am unwilling to explain in ordinary words.

Does this mean sessions are unstructured?

No. Eclectic does not mean improvised. Most hours have a shape: what happened since we last met, what we are working on, and something specific to carry into the week.

What if an approach is not working for me?

Say so, or I will usually notice and say so first. Changing method is normal clinical work, not a sign that anything failed.

Do you give homework?

Sometimes, and it is small. The hour is not where a life changes. The ordinary Tuesday is.

Are you trained in all of these formally?

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California and a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, and my training includes the Gottman Method, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, psychodynamic work, attachment theory, cognitive behavioral tools and Nonviolent Communication. I only list what I actually use.

How I work

Six ways of working, chosen out loud rather than by habit.

I was trained in more than one framework on purpose. This page explains what each of them is for, when I reach for it, and what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it.

What holds it together

Eclectic is not the same as making it up as I go.

Six frameworks could easily be a mess. What keeps it coherent is that all six are pointed at the same thing: a man who can tell the truth about his own life and be close to someone while doing it. These are the commitments underneath whichever method is in use.

A soft arch of shadow falling across a warm limewash wall — One structure, several rooms

About Mateo How the work is structured

The six

What each one is for, in plain language.

Most weeks I use two or three of these in the same hour without announcing the switch. Each page below explains the method and then what it would actually look like happening to you.

A word about the word

Why I do not use the word addict

I am a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist. That is the training, and it is the phrase most people type when they go looking for help with sexual behavior that feels out of control. If that is how you found me, you are in the right place.

In the room, I do not call anyone an addict. A label describes a person. The work is about a behavior, what it has been asked to carry, and what it costs. Men who arrive believing they are addicts usually arrive with a lot of shame, and shame is the thing that keeps the cycle running. Taking the label off does not make the behavior smaller. It makes it possible to talk about honestly.

So the phrase stays on this site because it is how people search, and it comes off the moment you sit down.

Sex addiction therapy, and what I do with that phrase The longer version, in the journal

In a session

What the hour usually looks like.

A long pier reaching into flat morning water under pale light

We start with the week. Not a symptom checklist, what actually happened, including the part you were hoping not to mention. That first ten minutes is where most of the real material is, and it is also where I find out which framework the hour needs.

Then we work on one thing. If the week involved a fight that went badly, we are probably in Gottman territory and I will slow the first three minutes of that conversation down until we can see the mechanics. If the week involved an urge you acted on, we are probably in ACT territory, looking at what the urge was carrying and what you wanted instead. If the week involved your mother, we may end up somewhere much older than this week.

I ask direct questions and I do not accept the tidy version. That is not severity; it is the only way this work goes anywhere. You will also find that I am not shocked, and that nothing you say gets treated as disgusting.

We usually finish with something specific and small for the week: a sentence to say, a moment to notice, a decision to postpone. I am licensed in California only, so sessions are in person in Long Beach or by telehealth anywhere in the state.

The question is never which model is best. It is which one gets at the thing in front of us this hour.

If you have never done therapy before Rates

Questions

Fair things to ask a therapist before you hand him an hour a week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Fine ripples moving through clear shallow water over pale sand — Chosen, not defaulted to

Next step

Ask me how I would work with your situation

A free 15-minute phone consultation. Bring the specifics and I will tell you plainly which of these I would expect to be using and why.

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