About Shannon
Dr. Shannon Derby helps people managing stress, anxiety, addiction, low self-esteem, and depression. She also supports those facing grief, relationship or intimacy concerns, parenting strains, and major life changes.
With a straightforward and respectful approach, she focuses on practical steps that fit each person’s situation. She keeps conversations grounded and clear. Sessions center on real problems and doable strategies rather than jargon.
Dr. Derby listens first, then works with each person to set reasonable goals and small, measurable steps toward them.
Background and approach
Her work draws on a mix of common-sense techniques and evidence-informed methods. She uses strategies from cognitive behavioral approaches and acceptance-based work to help people change unhelpful thinking and move toward valued actions. Attachment-focused ideas are used when relationships and connection are central to the issue.
Dr. Derby has 25 years of professional experience and holds a Licensed Mental Health Counselor credential in Florida. She adapts sessions to the pace and needs of the person in front of her, whether the focus is coping skills, emotion regulation, or rebuilding trust after loss or trauma.
People who choose her often want practical help they can use between sessions. She offers coaching-style feedback alongside therapy tools, aiming to make progress feel achievable. Her style is warm, direct, and collaborative.
How therapy approaches translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify what matters to them and take small steps toward those values while learning to live with difficult thoughts and feelings. It’s useful for anxiety, stress, and life transitions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying and testing unhelpful thoughts and building new behaviors. CBT is often used for depression, anxiety, and problems with motivation or habits. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at patterns in close relationships and how early experiences shape current interactions; it can be helpful when connection, trust, or recurring relationship dynamics are central concerns.Choosing the right approach is a joint process. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals, history, and preferences and then recommend strategies to try. That plan can change over time based on what helps most, and the therapist will adjust methods as progress is tracked.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and guided exercises. Phone sessions often fit into work breaks or days with limited bandwidth. Live chat and messaging make it easier to have shorter check-ins, share brief coaching moments, or get support between longer sessions. These options aim to make therapy more flexible and easier to fit into a busy life.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self-love
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English