Pennie Brooks, LMHC

Pennie Brooks is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with 42 years of experience. She works with adults who are stressed, anxious, grieving, or recovering from trauma and abuse. Her style is direct and compassionate, focused on practical steps people can use day to day.

Pennie draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as one tool to help people change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. She also uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people identify values and take meaningful action, and client-centered methods to keep the work grounded in each person's needs. Hypnotherapy and relationship-focused tools such as the Gottman Method may also be part of sessions when appropriate.

Her background spans hospitals, rehabilitation centers, hospice care, government programs for at-risk youth, group practices, and a long-term private practice in Florida. That variety informs how she responds to grief, chronic illness, pain, caregiver stress, and transitions. Pennie understands how medical and life events affect mood, identity, and relationships.

Sessions focus on building coping skills, improving communication, and setting clear, achievable goals. She helps people facing issues like abandonment, attachment struggles, codependency, body image concerns, and chronic health challenges. The work is collaborative and paced to each person's readiness.

Pennie aims to help people feel more stable and able to move forward. She emphasizes skill development and practical plans that fit daily life. Her long experience makes her comfortable adapting methods to match each person's goals and circumstances.

Online approaches that focus on skills and values

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people clarify what matters most and take steps toward those values despite painful thoughts or feelings. It can be useful for anxiety, grief, and life transitions by focusing on meaningful action rather than symptom elimination.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT, looks at patterns of thought and behavior that feed distress and teaches concrete strategies to change them. It often helps with anxiety, stress, chronic pain coping, and problems like low mood or unhelpful thinking.

Client-centered therapy emphasizes listening, empathy, and tailoring the pace and priorities to each person. That approach supports people who need time to explore identity, relationship struggles, or recovery from trauma.

Picking the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before. Together they’ll try methods that fit the person’s day-to-day life and adjust the plan as progress is made.

Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video lets people use visual cues and longer sessions, phone works well when bandwidth is limited, chat is useful for shorter check-ins, and messaging supports ongoing reflection between meetings. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to maintain continuity during life changes.