Dr. Penelope McAlmond-Ross, PSY

Terrible. Like someone else mentioned in their post, Dr McAlmond-Ross pointed out what she perceived as my flaws when I did not see them as such. She had no interest in discussing my presenting issues. Isn’t that the point of therapy? She also forgot things and repeated herself a lot. She WAY overshared her personal life and opinions. Another thing is she did not charge me a co-pay for the first 8-10 sessions. I assumed this was normal as this was my first time using civilian insurance. Then she springs it all on me at once. Very unprofessional and thoughtless. She did not seem to be very aware of the content of her website as I mentioned something I liked about it and a modality mentioned as one of her specialties and she had no idea what I was talking about. I really could go on and on. It was a terrible experience. I would not recommend unless you are a rare person who likes to be patronized and made to feel worse about yourself. This woman should not be practicing in my opinion.

I had a very similar experience to the person who left the last review. This provider seemed disorganized and distracted and wasn't very kind or compassionate. I have been going through awful emotional and mental pain due to a recent horrible experience and wanted to discuss my feelings and feel heard and validated and then hopefully receive suggestions on how to view and move forward from it more positive/hopeful. But this provider told me I was feeling sorry for myself and then just moved the conversation on to talk about my life history which is not why I wanted to meet with her. She also accused me of being an addict because I have a prescription for a disorder that she knows nothing about. And our visit also got cut off with her mid sentence due to her not managing the time properly. I was left feeling worse than when the visit started.

I was hopeful in my first interaction with her because she mentioned developing a therapeutic relationship and seemed focused on long-term goals. However, I found she was disorganized with managing time and allowed the telehealth appointment to drop off. She had tech issues at both sessions (mic not working, ear piece not charged). The main reason I stopped going was because she seemed more focused on what she perceived as ”issues” and she claimed I had an addiction. She kept directing me toward healthy coping mechanisms when I explained I wanted to focus on the reason why I was being triggered for the unhealthy coping mechanisms I was partaking in, which I acknowledged were not healthy but clearly stated was specifically triggered by certain area of trauma which I wanted to understand more as this was the sole trigger that resulted in the unhealthy habit.

I saw Dr. McAlmond Ross whilenOnwas transitioning out of the military. I had a lot of things going on at the time including someone stalking me. She was very understand gave me the courage to report this and also helped my anxiety buntalking about things and why I acted one or another. I really enjoyed her because it was not sugar coated. I felt that I have grown so much in the time with Dr McAlmond Ross. I would have loved to continue my care with her but unfortunately I moved out of the area.

She made me feel very self conscious, she pointed out my flaws without me mentioning them. Including physical ones such as acne and my weight (which I am only about 10 lbs over weight) I went to her at a very low time in my life and she would always talk down on me and really just made me feel worse. She never remembered anything I had said in the session before and I guess just didn't read her notes. I went to therapy as a child and do not remember ever getting treated this way.