Penelope Surber, LMHC

Penelope Surber is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) based in Florida with eight years of clinical experience. She focuses on helping adults manage stress, anxiety, depression, addiction concerns, and the aftereffects of trauma and abuse. Penelope aims to make the first steps toward help feel manageable and clear for people who are worried or overwhelmed.

She uses a straightforward, person-centered style that is warm and interactive. Sessions are conversational and focused on practical steps clients can try between meetings. Penelope listens for patterns tied to past relationships, attachment wounds, and family-of-origin dynamics, then helps people test new ways of thinking and behaving.

Her approach blends Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with elements of dialectical work and emotionally-focused methods. That means she helps people recognize unhelpful thoughts, practice new coping skills, and strengthen emotional awareness in relationships. Jungian ideas may also inform exploration of deeper patterns when that fits a client's goals.

Penelope commonly addresses issues such as abandonment, codependency, communication problems, caregiver stress, dissociation, and challenges tied to divorce or domestic violence. She also supports people coping with guilt, shame, and forgiveness work.

Therapy sessions are tailored to each person's priorities and pace. Penelope encourages practical experiments, simple skill practice, and steady progress rather than quick fixes. She invites anyone ready to take a step toward change to begin with a short matching process and a scheduled session.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online care

Penelope uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people identify unhelpful thoughts and try small behavioral experiments. CBT is practical and goal-oriented, and it can help with anxiety, depression, and addictive patterns. She also draws on Client-Centered Therapy, which emphasizes listening, empathy, and following the client's priorities to build trust and clarity.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. She works with each person to pick techniques that fit their goals and comfort level, and adjusts methods over time based on what helps. Clients and therapist decide together whether to focus more on skill building, emotional processing, or exploring long-standing patterns.

Online sessions offer a range of formats to match different needs. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and skill demonstrations, phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text messaging provide shorter check-ins or ongoing support between meetings. These options make therapy more flexible for different schedules, quieter surroundings, or when someone prefers not to be on camera.