About Neuma Psychological Services
Psychological care for people who want more than simply feeling less bad.
Neuma Psychological Services is a small psychotherapy, coaching, and consultation practice founded by Zach and Alicia Meyer.
We work with adolescents, college students, young adults, adults, couples, and families, while also providing coaching for people pursuing growth outside the context of mental health treatment and consultation for organizations working with people and communities.
We are deliberately a small practice.
When you contact Neuma, you are not entering a large behavioral health organization in which clinicians are largely interchangeable. You are choosing to work with one of two therapists who know one another's work well, share many of the same fundamental ideas about psychological health, and also bring different personalities, training, interests, and ways of thinking to the work.
That combination—shared philosophy without identical practice—is an important part of what Neuma is.
Why “Neuma”?
Our name comes from the ancient Greek word pneuma.
Its most literal meaning is breath, but historically the word carried meanings that extended well beyond respiration. In Greek philosophical thought, pneuma came to describe something like the vital spirit or animating force within a living being—and, in some traditions, the animating principle that permeated the world itself.
It is difficult to translate neatly into contemporary language. Breath. Spirit. Vitality. Life force. Something that makes a living thing not merely alive, but alive from within.
Modern mental healthcare is heavily influenced by the medical model, and for good reason. But the absence of illness is not the same thing as flourishing.
We are interested in what becomes possible beyond symptom reduction: greater self-understanding, deeper and more satisfying relationships, creativity, connection, discernment, meaning, purpose, and a fuller sense of inhabiting one's own life. The name Neuma gives us language for that larger vision of psychological health. It intentionally leaves a little mystery around what it means to be fully alive.
Our work may begin with what is causing suffering.
But we do not believe it has to end there.
Beyond Symptom Reduction
When someone comes to therapy with debilitating anxiety, we want the anxiety to become less debilitating. When OCD has begun organizing someone's life, we want the compulsive cycle to loosen. When depression has made life feel small and inaccessible, we want life to become available again.
But eventually another question becomes possible:
What do you want that recovered freedom for?
Perhaps it creates room for more satisfying relationships, greater creativity, meaningful work, stronger boundaries, deeper self-understanding, greater connection to community, more intentional choices, or a renewed sense of purpose.
These things are not extras added after psychological health has been achieved.
They are part of psychological health.
At Neuma, we want to help people reduce what diminishes life while also becoming increasingly capable of cultivating what makes life worth inhabiting.
Psychology Without Reducing People to Diagnoses
Diagnoses can be extremely useful.
They give us language for recognizable forms of suffering. They guide evidence-based treatment. They help us understand why certain experiences occur and what interventions are likely to help.
We take diagnosis and evidence-based treatment seriously.
We also believe a diagnosis is one kind of information about a person.
A person with OCD is not fundamentally an instance of OCD. Someone with ADHD has a developmental history, relationships, values, strengths, fears, ambitions, and ways of understanding themselves that matter just as much as their executive functioning. Trauma happens within a life and a relational context. Anxiety can be both a source of suffering and an adaptation that once served an important purpose.
Good therapy needs to know what it is treating without forgetting whom it is treating.
A Relational & Psychodynamic Foundation
Although Zach and Alicia use different treatment modalities, both of us approach psychological work through a broadly relational and psychodynamic lens.
We believe people make more sense in context.
The ways we respond to closeness, conflict, achievement, vulnerability, criticism, uncertainty, authority, responsibility, and our own emotions usually have histories.
Sometimes those histories are obvious.
Sometimes they reveal themselves only when we notice that the same kinds of situations keep producing surprisingly familiar reactions.
Understanding those patterns is not about blaming childhood for everything that happens in adulthood.
It is about recognizing that human beings learn through experience, particularly through relationships, and that what we learned earlier can continue influencing what feels safe, threatening, possible, or necessary now.
Therapy can help make those patterns more visible and therefore more available for change.
Two Clinicians, a Shared Practice
Neuma is owned and operated by Zach and Alicia Meyer.
We share many clinical interests, including anxiety, OCD, depression, identity, relationships, and the influence of earlier experiences on present life. We also both work with couples.
Our practices diverge in useful ways.
Zach works extensively with adolescents, college students, young adults, ADHD, emotional regulation, perfectionism, creativity, vocational questions, and the developmental work of becoming an adult. He is trained in Internal Family Systems and frequently incorporates IFS, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Exposure and Response Prevention, psychodynamic approaches, narrative work, and psychoeducation.
Alicia works extensively with adults, couples, trauma, codependency, boundaries, and complex family relationships. Intergenerational family therapy is a particular specialty. She is certified in EMDR and brings a strongly relational, trauma-informed, and family-systems perspective to her work.
OCD, anxiety, depression, and couples work are genuine areas of overlap rather than services belonging primarily to one clinician.
Sometimes the appropriate therapist will be obvious from what you are looking for.
Sometimes either of us could be an excellent fit.
When that is the case, personality and therapeutic style matter. We are different people, and naturally we are different therapists.
Therapy, Coaching & Consultation
Neuma began as a psychotherapy practice, but psychology has applications well beyond the treatment of mental illness.
That is why our work now includes three related but distinct areas.
Psychotherapy is healthcare. It is appropriate when someone is experiencing psychological symptoms, trauma, mental health conditions, relationship distress, or other concerns requiring clinical assessment and treatment.
Coaching allows us to bring psychological expertise to questions of development, discernment, relationships, habits, communication, creativity, life transitions, and personal growth when the primary purpose is not treatment of a mental health condition.
Consultation takes psychological knowledge outside the individual therapy relationship. We work with schools, colleges, camps, churches, nonprofits, performing arts organizations, businesses, and other organizations that encounter psychological questions in the work they do with people.
These services are different, but they emerge from the same basic conviction: understanding human beings better creates possibilities for people, relationships, and organizations to function more thoughtfully.
A Small Practice by Design
Scale is not one of our goals.
We value knowing the people we work with. We value being able to make decisions about our practice based on what we believe constitutes good psychological care rather than what is easiest to standardize across a large organization.
We also value the differences between therapists.
Psychotherapy is an unusually personal professional relationship. Training and expertise matter enormously, but so do temperament, communication style, curiosity, humor, warmth, directness, and the less measurable experience of whether another person's way of thinking helps you think differently.
We do not expect every client to fit every therapist.
We would rather help someone find a good fit.
Private-Pay Care
Neuma is a private-pay practice and does not participate directly with health insurance plans.
That decision is intentional.
Insurance can make healthcare considerably more accessible, and we recognize that private-pay therapy is not financially realistic for everyone.
At the same time, insurance fundamentally structures psychotherapy as medical treatment. Reimbursement generally requires a diagnosable mental health condition, documentation of medical necessity, and treatment organized within the administrative requirements of the insurer.
Some of our work fits that framework quite naturally.
Some does not.
A college student seeking help with identity and vocational direction may be doing important psychological work without having a disorder. A couple may want help strengthening a relationship before it reaches a crisis. An adult may want to understand recurring patterns, improve boundaries, or pursue greater meaning and self-awareness without needing those concerns translated into pathology.
Private-pay practice gives us greater freedom to determine the purpose, structure, and duration of the work according to what makes sense clinically rather than what is reimbursable.
For clients whose plans include out-of-network benefits, we can provide documentation that may be submitted to insurance for possible reimbursement when the service qualifies.
What Private Pay Does—and Does Not—Mean
Choosing not to participate with insurance does not mean that we believe private-pay therapy is inherently better therapy.
It means we have chosen a practice structure that fits the kind of work we want to provide.
For some people, using an in-network insurance benefit will be the most sensible financial decision, and we respect that.
For others, choosing a therapist based primarily on fit and expertise, having greater privacy around insurance involvement, or pursuing work that does not fit neatly into a medical-necessity framework may make private-pay care worthwhile.
We want prospective clients to understand the tradeoff clearly enough to decide for themselves.
In-Person in Milwaukee. Available Virtually Across Wisconsin.
Our office is located in Glendale, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee.
We work in person with clients throughout the Milwaukee area, including the North Shore, Mequon and Thiensville, Wauwatosa, Brookfield and Elm Grove, and surrounding communities.
We also provide virtual psychotherapy throughout Wisconsin where licensure permits, making it possible for clients elsewhere in the state to choose a therapist based on specialty and fit rather than proximity alone.
Coaching and consultation may allow for additional geographic flexibility depending on the nature of the service.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know whether Zach or Alicia is the better fit?
You do not need to decide that before contacting us.
If one clinician's specialty or approach clearly matches what you are looking for, we can begin there. When either therapist could be appropriate, tell us a little about what brings you in and what you value in a therapist. We can help you think through the fit.
Do you accept insurance?
Neuma is a private-pay practice and does not bill insurance directly. When appropriate, we can provide documentation for clients who wish to pursue out-of-network reimbursement through their insurance plan.
Because benefits vary substantially, clients should confirm their out-of-network mental health benefits directly with their insurer.
LEARN MORE ABOUT FEES & INSURANCE
Do I need a diagnosis to work with you?
Not necessarily.
Psychotherapy may involve diagnosis when clinically appropriate. Coaching and consultation do not require a mental health diagnosis and are specifically designed to make psychological expertise available outside the medical treatment framework.
If you are uncertain whether what you are looking for is therapy or coaching, we can help determine which service makes sense.
Do you offer virtual appointments?
Yes. We provide telehealth psychotherapy to clients throughout Wisconsin where our licenses permit us to practice.
Many clients in the Milwaukee area also choose telehealth for convenience even when they live close enough to attend in person.
What are your cancellation and practice policies?
Information about scheduling, cancellations, communication, privacy, telehealth, and other practical aspects of working with Neuma is available on our Practice Policies page.
Psychological Health Is More Than the Absence of Illness
Much of psychotherapy begins with something painful.
That is appropriate.
Suffering deserves attention.
But we do not believe the best possible outcome of psychological work is simply becoming less anxious, less depressed, less compulsive, or less distressed.
Those changes matter because they make other things possible.
More freedom.
More satisfying relationships.
Greater self-understanding.
Better boundaries.
More meaningful work.
Creativity.
Connection.
The ability to make choices increasingly shaped by values rather than fear.
A stronger sense of inhabiting one's own life rather than simply managing it.
That is what the name Neuma means to us.
We want to help people address what is getting in the way of living well.
And then we want to remain interested in what living well might actually mean.