About Shawna
Shawna Powell is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Colorado with 23 years of clinical experience. She decided to become a therapist after using her own life experiences to help others move beyond survival and toward a fuller life. Shawna works with people facing stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, grief, and depression.
She also addresses addictions, relationship and intimacy concerns, parenting strain, and compassion fatigue. Her background began during a master's internship when personal experience and professional training merged.
Background and approach
That turning point led her to pursue social change and long-term clinical work. Over more than two decades she has treated a wide range of concerns using an eclectic mix of approaches. In sessions she meets people where they are and treats them as the expert on their own lives.
Shawna combines evidence-informed methods to help clients reduce distress and build practical coping skills. She pays attention to attachment, patterns from past relationships, and how those affect current behavior. Clients can expect a direct but compassionate style that focuses on usable tools and steady progress.
Shawna helps people with self-esteem, body image, chronic illness or pain, and complex challenges such as bipolar mood shifts, dissociation, or co-occurring issues. Her practice also addresses specific concerns like abandonment, codependency, blended family issues, caregiver stress, and coping after disaster. Shawna aims to improve quality of life through clear goals, collaborative planning, and steady support.
Approaches that shape online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people clarify what matters most and take small steps toward those values while accepting difficult feelings. It is useful for anxiety, stress, and coping with life changes.Attachment-Based Therapy looks at early relationship patterns and how they show up now. It helps people understand their connection needs and make different choices in relationships and intimacy-related situations.
Shawna combines these approaches with client-centered care to tailor treatment to each person's goals. Figuring out the best approach is part of the work together. The therapist listens to what matters, discusses options, and adjusts methods as progress unfolds.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to match different rhythms and needs. Video makes it easier to read facial cues and practice new skills in real time. Phone sessions can be quicker to schedule and use less bandwidth. Messaging and live chat support short check-ins, journaling between sessions, or ongoing skill practice. These options allow therapy to fit around work, caregiving, health challenges, or travel while keeping the focus on steady, collaborative progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Existential Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 23 years
- Licensed
- Colorado
- Languages
- English
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