Penny Grechus
Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner
MO License Number: 089120
MO Nurse Practitioner License Number: 2020011383
Background and Experience
Penny is a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner seeing clients on an outpatient basis. She previously worked in various areas of nursing, including women’s health, diabetic education, trauma, adolescent residential care, disaster relief (team leader with Volunteer Medics Worldwide and The Bridge Church Network). and as a faith-based counselor.
As a Board Certified PMHNP, Penny can evaluate, diagnose, treat, prescribe for, and do therapy for mental health issues in all age groups. She is currently seeing patients ages 17 years and older, while consulting with Pediatric Nurse Practitioners in rural areas.
Penny views mental health as inseparable from spiritual, emotional, and physical health. She integrates wellness and psychiatric care with faith, using therapy and education as tools for healing. She promotes holistic psychiatric care using dietary measures, supplements, medical foods, alternative treatments, and Mindfulness techniques along with medicines and psychotherapy (currently with individuals only). She currently uses Cognitive Behavior Therapy/Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and initial grounding steps from Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy.
Special Interests and Services
Penny approaches therapy from both an existential and cognitive behavioral view: she sees the need to ask and have answered the foundational questions of life (why am I here, what is the purpose of pain, what happens when we die?) while addressing the thoughts and behaviors that go with those questions. She is trained to do individual, family, and group therapy for everyone, but believes God has gifted her to counsel sexual assault survivors both individually and in groups.
Penny has conducted seminars on healing sexual trauma and abuse, in conjunction with HOPE (directed by Amber McCutcheon). She has facilitated seminars on EMDR therapy and bariatric (weight loss) surgery. She has been a leader and facilitator for Conquering Addictions groups and has given continuing education lectures on PTSD, sex trafficking, and sexual assault (in conjunction with SLU and The Covering House).
She is co-founder of a ministry called Dignity: Liberia that takes medical, counseling, and educational teams to Liberia, West Africa where they work with female fistula survivors and with girls who have suffered trauma.
Treatment Issues
ADHD • Anxiety • Stress • Bipolar • Chronic Pain • Depression • Grief & Loss • Postpartum Mental Health • Trauma • PTSD (particularly sexual assault and childhood trauma) • Substance Abuse (particularly alcohol addiction and rehabilitation)
Insurance and Payment Options
Aetna, Anthem BCBS (PPO and Traditional), Cigna, UHC, and Private Pay
Education and Training
- Diploma in Nursing- St. Luke’s College of Nursing (now part of Rockhurst University, Kansas City)
- Bachelor of Science in Nursing- Regis University
- Master’s Degree specializing in Lifespan Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing- St. Louis University
- She did a large part of her clinical work with the providers at LifePointe, in both therapy and psychiatry.
