About Ellen
Ellen Penny-Brookes is a counsellor who focuses on helping people cope with anxiety, stress and low self-esteem. She explains things plainly and offers calm, steady support during difficult times. Ellen works remotely and in person, and aims to make first steps feel manageable for someone worried or overwhelmed.
Ellen trained in psychodynamic counselling, studying how early experiences shape feelings and behaviour. She also completed a postgraduate certificate in person-centred counselling, often called client-centred therapy, which emphasises listening and working at the client’s pace.
Background and approach
She uses those approaches alongside practical tools where helpful. Sessions are tailored to each person. Ellen listens for patterns that keep causing upset, and she helps people notice feelings and reactions that run beneath the surface.
She also uses practical techniques to address anxiety and unhelpful thinking when needed. Over five years of practice, Ellen has worked with a wide range of concerns, including trauma, grief, relationship difficulties, addiction-related issues, eating and sleeping problems, and compassion fatigue. Her approach blends exploration of past influences with present-focused strategies to manage symptoms and daily life.
Ellen is registered with the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists, known as BACP. She offers sessions by video call, phone, live chat or text messaging, and aims to make therapy fit around work and family commitments.
How these approaches work online and what they help
Psychodynamic therapy explores how early experiences shape feelings and repeated patterns in relationships. Online sessions let people talk about memories and current reactions, helping them notice links between the past and present in a steady, reflective way.Client-centred therapy focuses on hearing the person without judgement and following their pace. In remote sessions the counsellor listens carefully, mirrors what is said and helps the client find their own solutions and greater self-understanding.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with the client about their goals, preferences and what feels most helpful. Together they decide whether to focus more on exploring underlying causes, practising coping strategies, or a mix of both, and this can change over time.
Online therapy offers several practical benefits. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when meeting in person is difficult. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or the client prefers no camera. Live chat and text messaging suit brief check-ins, quick reflections between sessions or people who find writing easier than speaking. These options make it simpler to fit therapy around work and family life while keeping continuity of care.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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