Shawna Pankonin
Compassionate support for families and parents
- Credentials
- LPC
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed in
- Mississippi
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Shawna
Shawna Pankonin is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) based in Mississippi. She focuses on family and parenting concerns alongside issues like stress, anxiety, depression, relationship conflict, trauma and abuse, grief, and LGBTQ matters. Shawna uses plain, practical guidance to help parents and caregivers sort through problems and find workable steps forward.
She aims to listen first, learn where a family is starting from, and build a plan that fits everyday life.
Background and approach
Shawna brings 14 years of mental health experience across homes, schools, youth courts, outpatient clinics, and a Child Advocacy Center. That variety shaped her ability to adapt methods for different ages and family situations. She often supports clients dealing with adoption and foster care questions, blended family challenges, parenting skills, fatherhood issues, fertility concerns, and caregiver stress.
Her work blends person-centered care with evidence-based methods. Shawna commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, narrative, and solution-focused tools to help clients change unhelpful patterns and build new coping skills. She also draws on trauma-focused techniques when needed for complex abuse or loss.
Sessions are collaborative and straightforward. Shawna sets clear goals, helps break those goals into small steps, and checks progress along the way. She describes her approach as warm and supportive while being ready to tackle difficult issues directly.
Families and individuals who want practical strategies, improved communication, and clearer next steps will find a grounded approach. Shawna emphasizes steady effort and partnership so clients can gain more confidence and control over daily life.
How therapist approaches translate to online sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on understanding each person where they are. The therapist offers empathy and listens closely so clients feel heard, which helps with family conflict and parenting challenges. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches concrete skills to change patterns, which is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Shawna will discuss different methods and tailor a plan based on a client's needs, goals, and preferences. That decision is collaborative and can change as progress is made or difficulties arise.
Online therapy makes these approaches easier to use in daily life. Video calls let families meet face-to-face from home, phone sessions fit busy days, and live chat or text messaging offer quick check-ins or tools between sessions. These formats increase flexibility and help clients practice skills in real-time situations while keeping therapy accessible across locations.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Mindfulness Therapy
Attention training: noticing thoughts and physical feelings as they arrive without being carried off by them. Much of it is practice you do yourself, so guidance over video or audio works much as it would in person.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- 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
Next step
Talk to Shawna
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point