Theresa Pennachio, LMFT

Theresa holds a Master’s Degree Marriage and Family Therapy from Southern Connecticut State University, where she became certified in Gestalt Therapy (a form of trauma therapy.) She works with individuals of all ages, couples, and families. In particular, children and adolescents love to work with Theresa due to her relatable, warm nature, and parents enjoy receiving coaching from Theresa in regards to ways they can connect to their children, manage behaviors, and understand their children’s behaviors and emotions.

Theresa is certified EMDR, Motivational Interviewing, SMART Recovery (substance-use based treatment), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. She has extensive experience working with children with Autism Spectrum and cognitive-related disorders using behavioral modification techniques and ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis). Theresa has further experience working with children ages 3-18 who struggle with ADHD and conduct-related disorders, anxiety, substance use, trauma, and depression. Theresa also has years of experience working with couples on marital and co-parenting issues, and with families struggling to find common ground.

Theresa is trained and certified in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which helps patients to navigate symptoms of current and past trauma, phobias, performance anxiety, and extremely stressful memories. Theresa gently guides her patients to feel safe in their bodies while they process uncomfortable and traumatic experiences, with the goal of easing symptoms that accompany this trauma.

Theresa has a firm belief that therapy should be catered to the individual, not the other way around. Theresa’s style is person/family/couple-centered, collaborative, and transparent, to foster the most effective and safest space for potential change to begin. Theresa utilizes cognitive restructuring, psychotherapy, solution-focused, and brief strategic techniques to assist clients with overcoming challenges that prevent them from living a meaningful and fulfilling life. Theresa also incorporates movies, music, entertainment, and humor to emphasize the importance of developing effective and sustainable strategies for clients to utilize outside of the therapy office.