What does it mean to "work with our younger selves," and why even bother? In this solo episode with me (host, Adam James Cohen, LMFT!) we will cover this and more.  We ALL carry the wounds of our younger selves. And, like ghosts with unfinished business, the wounds of our younger selves - if left untended - can remain within us, like toxins, and come out in ways that interrupt the life we want for ourselves. Actively working with our younger selves is core to the whole theory of Second Adolescence as a framework for queer healing. In this episode, we'll cover: WHY it is valuable (and ..read more

Adam here, sharing about a new thing we’re going to be doing here on Second Adolescence! Since launching this podcast and Instagram community a couple years ago, I’ve received SO many DMs and emails from listeners sharing about their own experience, where they are at in their own Second Adolescence and healing journey, and asking me questions for advice on their situation. I also keep hearing from folks that they’d love the opportunity for listeners to ask me questions and have them answered on the podcast as a Q&A. And so, we are going to be doing just that! If YOU ever find yourself with ..read more

This week’s guest is writer Jared Dixon (he/him). Jared is a conversion therapy (CT) survivor and this conversation is all about his experience with CT. Jared lets us in to his personal story. We hear about his experience growing up, discovering his queerness, being sent to conversion therapy, and what healing has meant for him. Something so powerful about Jared is how he has used his experience as a CT survivor to really turn it into purpose, through both his award-winning debut novel, Corrupted: The Truth Shall Be The Nail In Your Coffin, and the work he does with the non-profit organization ..read more

Adam here, sharing about a new thing we’re going to be doing here on Second Adolescence! Since launching this podcast and Instagram community a couple years ago, I’ve received SO many DMs and emails from listeners sharing about their own experience, where they are at in their own Second Adolescence and healing journey, and asking me questions for advice on their situation. I also keep hearing from folks that they’d love the opportunity for listeners to ask me questions and have them answered on the podcast as a Q&A. And so, we are going to be doing just that! If YOU ever find yourself with ..read more

This week we have two guests joining us, Meg O’Neill and returning guest to the pod, Gender Specialist therapist and educator Rebecca Minor (from episode 36!). They are the women behind bi+(in)visibility, a community and supportive space for folks who are discovering their biness and queerness later in life.  In this conversation, we chat about their group, Meg’s own personal story of understanding her bi identity in her late thirties, and about the wide variety of experiences folks can have when uncovering and integrating their biness into their lives, including: the experience of bi f ..read more

This week’s guest is Leah Goodman, OTD, OTR/L, MSW, CYT (she/they). Leah is a therapist and education manager at The Expansive Group, a collective of queer and trans affirming therapists, led by Casey Tanner (also known on instagram as @queersextherapy). At The Expansive Group, Leah runs a support group for LGBTQ+ folks who are coming into/discovering their identity in adulthood (essentially going through their Second Adolescence!). This is the reason why I wanted to talk with Leah! In this episode, we talk all things support groups and group therapy, and how these can be tools to support LGBT ..read more

This week's guest is queer style coach, Tess Clabby (they/them), and wow - this was such a fun, playful, and meaningful episode. At its core, this episode with Tess is an invitation for all of us to get more attuned to our most true and free self. Tess talks with us about how fashion and style can be tools for us to intentionally explore and uncover who we are and heal from internalized anti-queerness and anti-transness. Tess shares with us about what it means to be a queer style coach, where to even begin when wanting to explore finding the style that feels most right for us,  common blo ..read more

On this week's episode we have artist and founder of The Queer Joy Project, Aimy Tien (she/they). The Queer Joy Project is a multimedia project that celebrates  queer stories: daily lived experiences, moments of happiness and serenity — each a form of resistance against today’s political climate. Through interviews with LGBTQIA+ subjects around the world and archival research, creator Tien reminds us not only of the world we are trying to build, but the community and happiness people find, even in the margins. About the guest: Aimy Tien (she/they) is an award-winning multidisciplinary ar ..read more

To start off Season 5, we have a solo episode with host, Adam James Cohen, LMFT. Today's topic is on the unique experience of shame that queer people who grew up in an anti-queer world know intimately. Adam talks about what Chronic Shame is, the impact this had on our younger selves (and still on our current adult selves), why he considers this an experience of complex trauma, and how we begin to heal. For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod on IG. Download episode transcript here.  ..read more

This week’s guest is Chris Curia (he/they). I loved getting to chat with Chris for many reasons, first being that we connected over the profession of psychotherapy as he is currently a psychotherapist in training, but I also SO appreciated them coming onto to share their story because they are someone who began really discovering their queerness recently within the COVID-19 pandemic. Chris shares how the stories of his coming out and pursuing training to become a therapist are so intertwined, which was also similar to my own story. There are so many things I could say about this conversation b ..read more