Training and professional focus
Dr. Panna holds a PhD in Clinical Sexology from Widener University and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She also holds the ACS and NCC credentials and brings 16 years of clinical experience to her work with individual adults.
Her clinical focus includes body image, sexual self-esteem, intimacy, identity, relationships, grief, trauma, anxiety, depression, and major life transitions. Panna Counseling's clearest specialization is the emotional and relational experience that can follow bariatric surgery, GLP-1 use, or other significant weight loss.
Research on life after bariatric surgery
Dr. Panna's doctoral dissertation examined body image and sexual self-esteem among approximately 825 women one to three years after bariatric surgery. That research helps inform a clinical approach that takes the “after” seriously: the period when visible progress may coexist with grief, disorientation, relationship changes, or feeling unfamiliar to yourself.
What working together feels like
Her style is warm, candid, conversational, and practical. Therapy makes room for thoughts you may edit around other people without requiring you to perform gratitude or positivity. The work looks beneath the immediate reaction, identifies the patterns protecting it, and turns insight into language, boundaries, experiments, and choices you can use outside the session.
Panna Counseling provides individual telehealth therapy only. Clients must be physically located in New Jersey or Pennsylvania during each appointment. Private-pay sessions are $180 and scheduling is completed through a secure external care platform.
Independent professional profiles
You can review Dr. Panna's current availability and independently hosted client feedback on her Grow Therapy profile and Zocdoc profile, or view her professional listing on Psychology Today. Panna Counseling does not copy or solicit client testimonials for this website.
To understand the specialty in more depth, begin with therapy after major weight loss.