Melissa Penney
Canadian Certified Counsellor - Qualifying
Supporting individuals and couples in processing complex trauma, relational patterns, medical trauma, and the impact of chronic illness or menopause on identity and intimacy.
Availability: Accepting New Clients
In-person (Calgary) or Online (AB, BC, SK, MB, NWT).
*Currently No Waitlist
Melissa Works With:
Adults & Teens
Individuals & Couples
Service Areas: Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and The Northwest Territories.
Phone: 587-353-3445, Ext. 211
Email: melissa@carbonpsychology.ca
Melissa brings a background that is uncommon in the field. Before becoming a therapist, she spent eight years working as a clinical nutritionist with individuals experiencing cancer, chronic illness, fibromyalgia, autoimmune conditions, and the physical and emotional weight of menopause. That work gave her direct experience with the ways trauma, grief, and identity shifts live in the body, and with the medical experiences that leave lasting marks most therapy doesn't address.
She specializes in complex relational trauma, medical trauma, and the impact of chronic illness, terminal illness, or major health changes on identity, relationships, intimacy, and sense of self.
Many of her Calgary-based clients are high-functioning adults who have spent years being capable, responsible, and taking care of others, while privately struggling with anxiety, self-criticism, perfectionism, or relationship patterns they can't seem to change. Others come during periods when life or their body has shifted significantly, including cancer diagnoses, chronic illness, menopause, and other transitions that disrupt identity and safety.
Melissa also works with couples, including sex and intimacy work for partners navigating health changes, menopause, or the impact of trauma on connection.
Melissa’s Approach.
Melissa is trained in Transactional Analysis, a depth-based approach that explores how early relationships and experiences shape the beliefs and patterns we carry into adulthood. These often sound like "I'm not good enough," "I have to get it right," "I can't disappoint people," or "I have to take care of everyone else."
At one point, these patterns helped someone maintain connection, predictability, or safety. Years later, the same patterns contribute to anxiety, shame, people-pleasing, difficulty setting limits, or repeatedly ending up in relationships that feel painfully familiar.
Her work draws from trauma, attachment, and neuroscience-based perspectives to help clients understand where their patterns came from and build genuinely different ways of responding to emotions, relationships, and themselves. For clients navigating cancer, chronic illness, terminal illness, or menopause, therapy also provides space for the parts of the experience that get overlooked in medical care: fear, grief, changes in identity, uncertainty about the future, and the complicated experience of living in a body that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
What it’s like to sit with Melissa.
Sessions with Melissa feel warm, grounded, and honest. She creates space for clients to be real about what's happening without needing to perform, explain, or manage her reaction.
She brings curiosity and compassion to difficult material without assuming everything needs to be analyzed indefinitely. The goal is to understand the patterns that continue to affect you, recognize what no longer serves you, and begin practicing different ways of relating to yourself and the people around you.
Her experience in both physical and mental health means she is comfortable sitting with the complexity that comes with illness, changing bodies, grief, intimacy shifts, and major transitions. She understands that emotional wellbeing doesn't exist separately from the rest of a person's life.
Personal Note
Always firstly, I am a mother to my amazing eleven year old son Isaac. Although I was born in Edmonton, Calgary has been my home since I was seventeen. I love to travel and have spent many of my adult years outside Canada. I spent nine of them in the UK, a year in Finland, another year in Southeast Asia and India, and many other trips in between. To me, people and relationships are the best part of life and travel has given me the opportunity to make friends all over the world.
When I am not travelling, I am enjoying anything and everything outdoors. Camping, hiking, skiing, swimming in our beautiful lakes, paddleboarding or rafting, I love it all. In the toughest times in my life, spending time in nature and the outdoors have been the fastest way back to myself. I also love food and spend probably more than a healthy amount of time in my kitchen.
Education.
Masters of Counselling Psychology (City University of Seattle)
First class Degree with Honours in Nutritional Sciences, specialised in clinical and sport nutrition (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Post-graduate psychology training in Transactional Analysis and the Gottman Method (level 1)
Post-graduate nutrition training in menopause, fertility, PCOS, type 2 diabetes, IBS, and sport nutrition.
Melissa Helps With.
Depression • Chronic stress • Trauma • Anxiety • Menopause and women’s health challenges •Interpersonal/relationship challenges • Phobias • Existential Concerns • Identity • Self-compassion • Emotional Dysregulation • Family Conflict • Couples Therapy