zach@neumapsych.com

414.207.6131

The therapeutic relationship is a unique one. It’s entirely focused on you and your needs, and my job is to join with you as we collaborate on solutions to your problems you’ve been unable to arrive at on your own. Whatever brings you to therapy, I will do my best to help you reduce your negative symptoms. However, I believe that lasting relief and change come from deepened personal insight and, ultimately, a changed relationship with yourself. This work takes longer and is more difficult. But I much prefer to work with clients who are interested in this kind of personal growth, and not just symptom relief. I find we’re just a better fit for each other.

Though well versed in effective therapies for a wide variety of mental health concerns, my passion is for working with adolescents, young adults, and with creators.

Adolescence is all about skill building. Some skills — language acquisition, walking, riding a bike — are obvious. Others — flexibility, frustration tolerance, problem solving — are more subtle. Though deficits in the latter kind of skills are often to blame for academic struggles, excessive worry, and behavioral concerns, building those skills is rarely part of the "solution" that gets offered. More often, punishments and rewards are used with little success, and much frustration all around. I specialize in identifying and teaching such lagging skills, and equipping families to continue this process at home after therapy has ended. In children ages 8 and up, I have extensive experience treating anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, impulsivity, inattentiveness, and academic issues. For this work, I draw heavily on Dr. Ross Greene's Collaborative and Proactive Solutions model.

High school and early adulthood are full of challenges, expectations, temptations, endings, and beginnings. For even the best equipped, it’s rough road to travel. Whether difficulty in this time expresses itself as a traditional mental health concern like depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, or academic struggle, or as a more existential concern about identify, meaning, or purpose, I have a deep desire to see young people transition into adulthood as the best possible versions of themselves. I offer support, insight, and skill building tailored to each client’s individual story, drawing mainly on psychodynamic, dielectic-behavioral, emotion-focused, and cognitive-behavioral therapeutic traditions. I also find great therapeutic value in the Enneagram’s conceptualization of personality, and the insights it provides permeate virtually all of my clinical work.

Lastly, as a musician myself, I am passionate about seeing creative people express themselves in a vibrant, unencumbered way. This benefits them, and it benefits the rest of us, too! If you are any kind of creative person struggling with insecurities about your work, writer’s block, or other limits to your full artistic potential, I would love to be your “Creativity Coach” and help you get your creative juices flowing again. I draw on the most recent research into the nature of creativity and well regarded techniques you can use on your own to continue making your best work.

When not doing therapy, I enjoy writing and recording music, keeping dying arts alive, and spending time in our awesome city with my wife and three young kids.