David Bowman, LMFT

Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Coaching

Recently I have been delving into the childhood messaging that gay and queer men received from their respective fathers. It struck me how many current maladaptive behaviors have roots in the problem of straight men raising gay boys. I am proud to announce that my new online course and e-book on re-parenting for gay men will be available January 2025. Father Figures: Re-fathering for Gay Men consists of 17 online activities that will help you explore your own dad’s (or father substitute’s) messaging, what you expected of him and did not get, and how you can overcome the problem of the missing gay paternal energy by creating your own ideal gay father figure.

David’s Featured Posts

Lessons from Long-term Sobriety

“Relapse is part of recovery,” goes the saying. Not that we welcome relapse, but it happens. For myself and for many others, a relapse after a years-long period of sobriety is a very different affair from our initial climb out of the world of substances. At this later...

The Schemas Running Your Life

As children, we have no choice but to emulate our parents and caregivers. That is how we humans learn and grow. As our world view expands, we imbibe the norms and values of the culture around us without even knowing we are doing it. Even when we finally become aware...

Absent Fathers and Their Sons

Over the years, I have seen many male clients, of all sexualities, and it has become obvious to me that the majority of them had absent fathers (or father figures), that is, absent in one way or another. While many grew up with physically absent fathers, others had...

Self-Sabotage

Stop Yourself from Stopping Yourself After spending some time doing psychotherapy, many of my clients have identified changes they would like to make in themselves and their lives, and we have worked together to map out goals, objectives, and even detailed plans and...

The Father You Always Wanted

In an earlier article, I introduced the subject of “daddy issues,” that is, problems faced by sons who either have troubled relationships with their fathers or whose fathers were largely absent during their childhood, either physically or emotionally. In Absent...

The Mysteries of Masculinity

When I was a child, my parents gave me a framed copy of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” which ends (after an endless litany of requirements) with the punch line: “You’ll be a Man, my son!” The truth is, if you can follow all the dictates outlined in that poem, you’ll be...