Penelope "Penny" McBride
Compassionate, practical therapy for life challenges
LCSW New York
- Experience
- 26 years in practice
- Focus areas
- Stress, Anxiety, Addictions, Family
- Approaches
- Gottman Method, Attachment-Based Therapy
- Languages
- English
About Penelope
Penelope "Penny" McBride is a licensed clinical social worker with 26 years of practice in New York. She uses a client-centered way of working to help people manage stress, anxiety, mood changes, and substance use.
Background and approach
Penny focuses on clear communication and practical tools people can use between sessions. She blends relational and behavior-focused approaches to address family patterns, trauma, grief, and intimacy concerns.
Penny draws on the Gottman Method alongside attachment-based and cognitive techniques to help people understand how relationships and past experiences shape current feelings. Sessions emphasize small, concrete steps toward better coping and stronger connections.
Penny often helps people struggling with eating concerns, body image, anger, and the emotional fallout of separation or major life changes. She also supports those facing caregiver stress, codependency, and career-related distress.
Her approach includes coaching elements when clients want clear goals and action plans. People can expect a calm, respectful tone in sessions and practical strategies for day-to-day life.
Penny values straightforward conversation and works to make therapy useful and focused. She encourages clients to try new ways of relating and then refine what works.
Therapy with Penny can include talk work, skills practice, and planning for real-world challenges. Her long experience in clinical settings informs flexible ways to tailor support.
She works in English and offers multiple online formats to fit different needs.
Using evidence-based approaches in online therapy
Penelope integrates the Gottman Method with attachment-based thinking to address how relationship patterns and emotional bonds affect everyday life. The Gottman Method focuses on improving communication and managing conflict in relationships through clear skills and exercises. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at early bonds and current attachment styles to explain why people react the way they do in close relationships and to build more supported ways of connecting.She also leans on client-centered practices that place the person's goals and experiences at the center of the work. This means the therapist and client decide together which approaches to try and how to adjust them over time. Finding the right mix is a collaborative process based on the client’s needs, goals, and preferences.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to make therapy flexible. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and skills practice, phone sessions can be useful when bandwidth is limited or a camera is not wanted, and chat or text formats work well for brief check-ins or ongoing support between sessions. These options help people fit therapy into work, caregiving, and busy lives while still doing meaningful therapeutic work.
Frequently asked questions
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Areas of expertise
Primary focus
Also works with
Additional focus areas
Therapeutic approaches
Experience
26+ years
Licensed in
New York
Languages
English