Matt recently appeared on WNYC’s All Of It with Alison Stewart, as well as in several publications, speaking as an expert in family therapy, dating therapy, and therapy for parents of young adults.
On WNYC’s All Of It, Matt joined NYU’s Dean of Students Rafael Rodriguez to address the enormous and sometimes anxiety-provoking transition of the first year of college. In the segment “Approaching Move-in Day as a Parent,” Matt not only explored how parents can support their young adult children through this moment of maturation, but how they too can grieve letting their children go as they send them to college. Though young adults face any number of new situations in college, including living in a new place, drugs and alcohol, sex, sexual identity, and academic pressures, Matt urged parents to have confidence in their own parenting work and appreciate a young adult’s “internal capacity to rise to the challenges they’re confronting.”
In Newsweek’s “What Family Therapists Think About Roe v. Wade Being Overturned,” Matt responded to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade from the perspective of a family therapist. Explaining that those in family planning are “seeing some really concerning things coming,” he observed how access to abortion impacts families’ lives in both healthy and unhealthy relationships. Even if a family is loving and caring, an additional child can threaten their economic stability. Matt also asserted the importance of children being very wanted since, as therapists, “we see the impact of children who are not fully welcomed or celebrated…”
Additionally, Matt contributed to Newsweek’s ongoing column “What Should I Do?”. In “My Half-Siblings From My Dad’s Affair Want To Meet–What Should I Do,” Matt responded to a reader who was hesitant to connect with her half-siblings since she is still hurt by her late father’s infidelity. Though acknowledging “decisions parents make have consequences for their children despite the fact that children usually have no say in those decisions,” Matt asked the reader: “What’s more complicated is the question of whether or not children from that relationship are responsible as well, or, are they just as much of a bystander as you and your siblings?”
In Buzzfeed’s “Height Obsession Is Everywhere On Dating Apps. Here’s What Experts Think About That,” Matt explored how “dating apps distort the reality of the complex, nuanced, in vivo, lived, chemical complexity of two people being in a room together, whether or not they want to go on a second date, kiss, make out, hook up, or build a life together.” Though the article focused height bias specifically, Matt encouraged those on dating apps to find new ways to “tweak the filter and let something else to do the work of discovering” rather than limitations based on appearance.
Finally, Matt answered a reader’s question in The Cut for “Should I Let My Estranged Dad Pay My Student Loans?” Matt suggested that the reader ask her father directly about his intentions in paying her loans. He emphasized, “You get to decide what to do and a perfectly acceptable choice at any point is to say, ‘I’m not interested in a relationship with you under any conditions.’”