About Penny
Penny Gifford is a Licensed Professional Counselor who brings 30 years of experience to her work with adults. She focuses on helping people learn new skills, regain confidence, and make practical changes that improve daily life. Her style is collaborative and non-judgmental, with attention to concrete steps people can use between sessions.
She often helps with stress, anxiety, depression, and issues related to addiction and mood disorders. She also supports people dealing with relationship strain, grief, sleep and eating problems, and challenges tied to self-esteem and life transitions.
Background and approach
Penny works with a wide range of concerns including ADHD, bipolar conditions, and trauma-related struggles. Penny draws from client-centered methods alongside cognitive behavioral techniques and dialectical approaches. She uses solution-focused and motivational strategies to set goals and track progress.
Sessions combine supportive listening with practical skills practice and specific coping tools. Her approach is straightforward and goal-oriented. She helps people identify patterns that get in the way and then build small, achievable changes.
Conversations are aimed at better daily functioning, clearer priorities, and healthier responses to stress. Penny practices in California and holds LPC and LCPC credentials. She offers sessions that can fit different schedules and needs, and she guides each person toward the mix of strategies that best matches their goals.
Approaches that shape online sessions
Client-centered therapy places the person’s experience at the center of work, with the therapist listening closely and responding to what matters most. It helps people feel heard and clarifies personal values and goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and changing behaviors step by step to reduce anxiety, depression, and problematic coping patterns. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, teaches concrete skills for regulating intense emotions, improving distress tolerance, and strengthening interpersonal effectiveness.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences, and daily challenges to shape which methods to use. That collaborative planning means strategies are adjusted as progress is made and new priorities emerge.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to give flexibility. Video lets people use visual cues and practice skills in real time. Phone calls can be shorter check-ins or full sessions when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text messaging fit quick updates, brief coaching, or times when typing is easier than speaking. These options make it simpler to weave therapy into a busy life and keep momentum between appointments.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Colorado, Montana, California
- Languages
- English