what is Second Adolescence?
Host of the pod, psychotherapist and coach Adam James Cohen, proposes Second Adolescence as a developmental life stage LGBTQ+ folks move through in adulthood after growing up in an anti-queer world. It is a framework for queer healing and liberation that addresses the wounding anti-queerness causes for LGBTQ+ people.
It is the messy, terrifying, exhilarating, fulfilling, and, ultimately, healing part of a queer person’s post-coming out life where we work towards living as our most true and free selves. For many of us, this involves gifting our younger selves the experiences they missed out on and healing the wounds they accrued that we may still be holding within us.
about the show, Second Adolescence
Each episode of Second Adolescence features a conversation with a new queer person about their own journey. We hear what their experience was like growing up, discovering their identity, coming out, and what their Second Adolescence has involved - navigating dating, sex, and relationships, shedding or unlearning harmful and limiting belief systems they internalized growing up, discovering who their most free queer selves are, and all the other messy, beautiful, awkward, and healing experiences that fill Second Adolescence.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts.
The Host
Hi, I’m Adam James Cohen (he/him). I am a psychotherapist and coach based in San Francisco, CA where I specialize in supporting LGBTQ+ folks.
I traveled through my own Second Adolescence and have been working professionally with Second Adolescence for the past several years. I set out to write Second Adolescence (the book, coming soon!) and start the podcast because both are what I wish I had as I was fumbling through my mid twenties into my early thirties; trying to find myself as a queer person and struggling to make sense of why I felt the way I did. So underdeveloped. So behind. So uncomfortable, still, in who I was.
First stumbling upon the phrase during a journaling session when I was 25 years-old, Second Adolescence became an evolving framework I used to help make sense and meaning out of what I was going through as I began gaining the experiences I missed out on during my life in The Closet. In the process, I realized how many wounds of my younger selves I still carried, and found myself journeying down the long, messy, and beautiful path that is a queer adult’s trek towards healing and liberation.
For more from me, visit:
- articles on queer healing and Second Adolescence I’ve written for Psychology Today
- my psychotherapy practice website
- my coaching with LGBTQ+ folks
- @secondadolescencepod on Instagram where I share more writing and information about all things queer healing