Jack Szary, LMHC-D
NY License #: 013282 | LinkedIn | PsychologyToday
I'm a licensed therapist based in Brooklyn, specializing in anxiety, burnout, trauma, and depression for professionals and men across New York State. Therapy with me is fully virtual, from Manhattan to Buffalo, and combines insight with practical tools that actually interrupt your patterns.
My Specialties
Anxiety & Stress | Burnout | Depression | Trauma | Self-Esteem | OCD | Life Transitions | Interpersonal Issues
Why This Work Matters To Me
I've worked with enough people to notice a pattern: the skills that get you through hard times aren't the ones that help you actually live. I help people figure out the difference.
Before private practice, I worked in foster care and homeless services, where I saw how people adapt to survive impossible situations. Then I started working with professionals in Manhattan and realized the same survival mechanisms show up in corner offices. Hypervigilance. Emotional shutdown. The belief that rest is something you'll earn later.
This work matters to me because I've seen people shift from surviving to actually living. It doesn't require a personality transplant. Just different tools.
What I Treat
If you’ve spent years being the person who handles things, you might not even have language yet for what’s not working. That’s okay. The categories below are just entry points; the work itself is built around you. And if part of the hesitation is that therapy never seemed built for guys like you, we wrote about what therapy for men is really like.
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The racing thoughts, the constant scanning for what could go wrong, the inability to fully relax even when things are fine. We work on understanding what your anxiety is trying to do for you, then building tools that actually calm your system instead of just managing around it.
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Burnout isn't fixed by a vacation. It's the result of running on survival skills long past the crisis they were built for. We look at the patterns driving the depletion (overfunctioning, difficulty saying no, rest that never feels earned) and build something sustainable.
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Depression for high performers often doesn't look like staying in bed. It looks like going through the motions, feeling flat about things that used to matter, and wondering why success doesn't feel like anything. We work on reconnecting to what makes life feel worth living, not just functional.
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Trauma isn't only the big events. It's anything your nervous system had to adapt around, and those adaptations often outlive their usefulness. We work at your pace to understand how the past shows up in your present, then loosen its grip.
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The inner critic that never takes a day off. Standards you'd never hold anyone else to. Achievement that never quite lands. We work on where those patterns came from and what it takes to feel enough without the constant proving.
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Intrusive thoughts, rituals, and the exhausting loop of doubt and checking. I use evidence-based approaches to help you relate differently to the thoughts instead of obeying them.
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Career changes, relationship shifts, new cities, new identities. Even good change is destabilizing. We work on navigating the in-between without losing your footing or yourself.
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Conflict you keep replaying, boundaries that collapse under pressure, patterns that follow you from relationship to relationship. We work on understanding your part in the dynamic and changing it.
Why Work With Me
I know what it takes to go from white-knuckling through your day to actually having one. Surviving and living require completely different skill sets. I teach the second one.
I work well with people at different points in the process: those still learning to name what they feel, and those who understand their patterns but can't seem to change them.
How I Think About Change
My approach combines insight with frameworks. We understand why this keeps happening. Then we build something that actually interrupts it.
I focus on recognition: spotting the patterns that keep you stuck, then giving you tools to do something different when they show up again. Some of that happens through conversation. Some through concrete exercises you take back into your actual life.
I don’t have a rigid protocol. I have a compass: understand first, then move. If you need space to explore, we explore. If you’re ready to act, we build. Most people need both.
What It’s Like To Work With Me
Expect a conversation with someone who actually gets it.
I'll laugh with you when something is absurd. I'll name the thing you're avoiding when you need to hear it. We move between real talk and real strategy, and I won't fill silence with platitudes. My job isn't to sit there nodding. It's to help you see what you're not seeing, then do something about it.
My style is:
Energetic
Inquisitive
Direct (I'll tell you what I'm noticing)
Goal-Oriented (we're here to change something, not just describe it)
Outside Of Therapy, I Spend My Time On:
Saturday mornings with Brooklyn Roasting Company coffee, incense burning, and a good book. Slow starts are a religion.
Music and cooking. I play acoustic guitar, gravitating toward songs that hold up unplugged and can carry a room at a casual get-together. I also bartended through graduate school at NYU, which taught me creativity under pressure, and I still experiment in the kitchen at home.
Learning Portuguese. My wife is Brazilian, and building a life across two cultures has been its own education in patience, humor, and translation.
Athletics. I play street hockey in leagues around the city and run with a run club hosted by my neighborhood barbershop.
Getting Started Together
If you're tired of going in circles, let's talk. You don't need to have it figured out before you reach out. That's what the call is for.
I have current openings and respond to all inquiries within 24 hours.
Professional Endorsements
Education, Credentials, & Trainings
New York University, MA Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness (2021)
Florida State University, BS in Criminology (2018)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) - Evergreen Certifications, Lane Pederson, PsyD (2023-2025)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) - PESI, Leslie Sokol, PhD
OCD Treatment - NOCD Academy
Framework For Healing Trauma - ALIA Innovations
Professional Affiliations
Member - New York Mental Health Counselors Association (NYMHCA)
Member - NYU Alumni Association (NYUAA)
Facilitator - "The Huddle", Bi-Weekly Peer Consultation Group
Participant - National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Events