logo

About

Hello. I’m Max.

I focus on individuals, including many therapists, with a particular emphasis on gay and queer men and childhood trauma.

Much of this comes from lived experience. When it comes to being gay, I know what it’s like to grow up sensing something is different before there is language for it, to carry shame quietly, to mask, to wait, and to come out internally long before letting others in. I also know that coming out is not a single moment of relief, but often the beginning of a new, tender, and disorienting developmental phase.

With gay and queer men, this often means working with the exhaustion of masking, the impact of internalized shame, and the grief of development that had to happen later or in private. It also means honoring complexity. Masculinity and femininity, certainty and uncertainty, pride and fear, belonging and competitiveness can all exist inside of us without needing to be resolved into a single, clean identity.

About Me

I grew up in Northern California and began my professional life in a very different world: filmmaking and visual storytelling. I loved the medium, but the culture wasn’t nurturing, and eventually I found myself asking a deeper question about how people make sense of their inner lives. That question led me back to school for social work and into the mental health field, where things began to feel more aligned.

My early clinical years were spent working in crisis settings with people who were homeless, marginalized, and often treated as problems rather than people. That work changed me. Sitting with acute suffering, repeated crisis, and systemic neglect softened something in me and sharpened something else. It taught me compassion without romanticizing pain, and it left me far less interested in judgment or quick explanations.

In the therapy room, I aim to be steady, curious, playful, and human.

I don’t believe therapists need to perform calm or pretend fear never shows up. I believe healing happens through relationship, co-regulation, and the quiet permission for all parts to exist without being rushed or corrected.

My work is grounded in Internal Family Systems therapy.

I was drawn to IFS not because it is clever or neat, but because it matched my lived reality. It gave language to the experience of inner conflict, shame, protectiveness, fear, and longing without pathologizing any of it. IFS understands that what we call symptoms are often intelligent strategies developed in impossible circumstances. Healing, in this view, is not about fixing what is wrong, but about restoring a relationship with what was once pushed away.

I’m also the author of Internal Family Systems Therapy for Gay and Queer Men: A Companion for After Coming Out, which I wrote largely for the parts of me that wished this language and companionship had existed earlier. 

Education

Master of Social Work, California State University, Sacramento       2014 – 2016
Emphasis: community mental health for adults & children;
Thesis Topic: Sexual Identity-Focused Therapy

Bachelor of Arts in Film & Media, University of California, Santa Barbara       2004 – 2008
Awarded outstanding graduate honors, voted upon by program faculty.

Professional Development

  • PA for Somatic IFS Step 2 Training – led by Susan McConnell, May 2025.
  • Somatic IFS Step 2 Training – led by Susan McConnell, November 2024 to January 2025.
  • PA for IFS Institute Level 1 training, LT Jory Agate, AT Jess Finney; July to October 2024.
  • IFS Institute Level 1 LGBTQIA+ Affinity Training; August 2023 to January 2024.
  • Stepping Out – 16 week, 48 hour intensive course for gay male therapists on practicing IFS run by IFSCA, September 2021 to December 2021.
© 2025 Max Littman Psychotherapy Practice Online Therapy