Christine Penwell , LPC

Christine Penwell is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) based in Tennessee who helps people facing relationship strain, parenting stress, trauma and abuse, anxiety, and self-esteem struggles. She focuses on practical steps clients can use right away. Christine emphasizes empathy and a respectful, client-led approach that centers each person's experience.

She draws on attachment ideas to understand how past bonds shape current relationships. Sessions often include goal-focused tools from cognitive behavioral strategies and skill-building from dialectical approaches. Christine helps people name patterns, try new ways of relating, and practice coping skills between meetings.

Her background includes seven years working as a counselor in several states, with substantial experience supporting parents of neurodivergent children and people recovering from trauma. That work brought hands-on experience with family dynamics, adoption and foster care concerns, attachment issues, and the aftereffects of abuse and loss.

In session Christine keeps language plain and direct. She listens first, then offers small, testable changes clients can try. Clients can expect a steady, supportive presence and concrete strategies for communication, emotion regulation, and boundary-setting.

Christine also addresses career stress, intimacy-related concerns, ADHD challenges, and practical coaching around life transitions. Her practice supports people working through guilt, shame, forgiveness, and complicated family-of-origin dynamics. The focus is on what helps you function better day to day.

How attachment and skills-based work translate to online care

Attachment-informed work focuses on how early bonds shape current relationships and reactions. In online sessions this means talking through relationship patterns, mapping how past hurts show up now, and practicing new ways of relating in real time.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches concrete skills to change unhelpful patterns. It helps with anxiety, stress, and low mood by offering practical exercises and experiments to try between sessions.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) adds skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication. Those skills can be practiced in-session and then used during real-life moments when emotions run high.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Christine will collaborate with each person to identify goals, try approaches, and adjust methods based on what helps. The process is conversational and flexible, not prescriptive.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and role-play, phone fits shorter check-ins or when bandwidth is limited, live chat allows quick back-and-forth, and messaging supports ongoing reflection and brief coaching between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life.