About Shawna
Shawna Pankonin is a licensed professional counselor practicing in Mississippi. She helps people who are struggling with stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, trauma and abuse, parenting challenges, grief, self-esteem, career concerns, and mood issues like bipolar disorder. Shawna keeps sessions straightforward and practical.
She starts by listening and letting each person explain their story. Then she works with them to set clear goals and small steps they can try between meetings.
Background and approach
Her style is warm and direct, and she invites clients to be part of decisions about their care. Her background includes 14 years in the mental health field across many settings. Shawna has provided therapy in homes, residential programs, schools, youth court systems, outpatient clinics, and a Child Advocacy Center.
That range means she has experience with a broad set of life situations and clinical challenges. Shawna uses a flexible mix of approaches. She draws on client-centered principles, cognitive behavioral techniques, mindfulness practices, narrative work, and solution-focused strategies to match each person’s needs.
She adapts methods rather than forcing a single model on every client. She also has experience with specific family and care issues such as adoption and foster care, blended family concerns, caregiver stress, communication problems, codependency, divorce and separation, domestic violence, fertility and fatherhood issues.
Shawna aims to help people feel heard, build confidence, and take manageable steps toward the life they want.
Therapeutic approaches and how they work online
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person telling their story while the therapist listens and reflects. This approach helps people feel heard and helps identify what matters most to them. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors and teaches practical skills to change patterns that feed anxiety or depression. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention practices to reduce stress and improve focus.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals and preferences, then try methods that fit those needs. If something does not seem helpful, adjustments are made together so the work stays relevant and useful.
Online sessions can be done by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and needs. Video calls are useful for a full conversation and visual cues, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat can be a quicker check-in, and text messaging supports short updates or ongoing reflection between meetings. These options make therapy more flexible for people balancing work, parenting, or travel.
Questions people ask
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What is her therapy style like?
How much experience does she have?
What are her credentials and where is she located?
Which languages are used in sessions?
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What do I need to do to begin?
What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Adoption and foster care
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed
- Mississippi
- Languages
- English