About Penelope
Penelope "Penny" McBride is a licensed clinical social worker in New York with 26 years of practice. She offers a calm, conversational approach focused on practical steps. Penny centers sessions on the person in front of her and looks for realistic ways to relieve stress and anxiety.
She uses client-centered methods that let people set the pace and topics for therapy. That often pairs with cognitive-behavioral ideas to spot unhelpful thoughts and try small, testable changes.
Background and approach
Attachment-based work helps people understand how past relationships shape current patterns. Penny has long experience helping people with addiction, trauma, grief, and mood concerns like depression and bipolar disorder. She also supports those facing career shifts, parenting strain, caregiver stress, and eating or body image struggles.
She pays attention to how family history and communication patterns affect present problems. Sessions aim to build skills for managing intense feelings, improve communication, and strengthen self-compassion. Practical tools and clear goals are mixed with steady attention to emotions.
Penny helps people name what matters and take small steps in that direction. People meet her for short-term work like coping with a life change, or for longer-term support when patterns run deep. Her style is warm, straightforward, and collaborative.
The work is paced to each person’s needs and goals.
Online approaches that meet you where you are
Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current ways of connecting and reacting. It helps people understand patterns in their close relationships and learn new ways to feel safer and more connected. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on the person's needs and pace, offering a respectful, listening-first space so people feel heard and can decide what to work on. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps identify unhelpful thoughts and tries practical steps to change feelings and behaviors through short experiments and skill practice.Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with each person to choose methods that match their goals, history, and comfort level. That process can shift over time as needs change, and sessions are adjusted together.
Online formats make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. Video calls give visual connection for deeper conversational work. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers to avoid being on camera. Live chat and text-based messaging are useful for brief check-ins, coping skills practice, or when writing feels like the best way to express things. These options offer flexibility so therapy can continue around work, caregiving, or other routines.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 26 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English