Penny McGrath, MA, LCPC
Penny is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) in the State of Illinois. She has been in practice for over 25 years. She has extensive experience working with anxiety combining a relational, mindfulness-based perspective. Penny educates clients with neuroscientific facts about how the brain and mind works, which helps improve both understanding of symptoms as well as treatment compliance and therapy outcomes. Penny also borrows from well-researched, evidence-based modalities such as CBT, ACT, and DBT.
Penny has worked in a variety of mental health settings including partial hospitalization, inpatient, in home and outpatient agencies. She has over 10 years experience supervising graduate students and Licensed Professional Counselors as well as seeing other mental health professionals as clients.
She has expertise working with clients across the lifespan. Penny has specialized training and in-depth knowledge working with anxiety, OCD, grief & loss, depression, identity shifts, executive function deficits & parenting challenges. She has earned a Life Transitions Specialist certificate. Penny’s work with clients is informed by secular Buddhism which she studies & practices.
She works with young adults in navigating the passage from high school to college or college to the workplace. Penny also works with adults experiencing life transitions including divorce, illness, aging, grief and loss, and parenting challenges.
Penny has a warm and engaging style of getting to know her clients and joining them where they are with empathy and understanding. Though change within our lives is constant, most of us struggle with tolerating the uncertainty that comes along with it. She works with clients to create awareness about the story they are telling themself while exploring how past experiences have shaped these narratives. Penny encourages using present moment awareness of “what is” in order to be responsive in situations rather than reactive to the “what if’s” the mind generates.
