About Colleen
Dr. Colleen Downes is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 35 years of practice. She helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD, grief, relationship strain, and parenting challenges.
She works in New York and speaks English. Her style is warm and interactive. She offers straightforward conversations and practical coping strategies.
Sessions focus on respect, compassion, and a nonjudgmental tone to help people feel heard. Dr. Downes blends client-centered listening with psychodynamic ideas.
Background and approach
She also uses mindfulness and solution-focused techniques when they fit a person's needs. That means she pays attention to life patterns, uses calming practices, and helps set small, achievable goals. She has worked with people facing chronic illness, caregiving stress, adoption and foster care concerns, and learning differences.
Her background includes mental health settings that brought experience with family of origin issues, attachment concerns, and fertility or medical stressors. In sessions she helps people sort priorities, manage impulsivity, and handle career or relationship decisions. She also supports those dealing with compassion fatigue and caregiving burden.
The focus is on usable tools and clearer next steps. People who choose her can expect a collaborative plan that adapts over time. She emphasizes small changes that add up and encourages clients to notice progress between sessions.
How therapy approaches translate to online work
Client-centered therapy begins by listening closely to each person's concerns and priorities. In online sessions this means the therapist follows the client's lead, shapes discussions around what matters most, and adjusts pace and focus based on feedback. It is useful for people who want a supportive, person-driven space to sort out issues.Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices that reduce reactivity and improve focus. Online sessions can guide brief exercises you can practice between meetings, which can be especially helpful for stress, anxiety, and managing impulsivity associated with ADHD.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try techniques, and adjust methods as needed. This collaborative process helps match strategies to what actually feels helpful.
Online formats offer practical benefits for many people. Video calls let therapists and clients read facial cues and have fuller conversations. Phone sessions may be easier when bandwidth is limited or when a shorter check-in fits a work break. Live chat and text-based messaging provide flexibility for quick updates, coaching-style support, or when writing helps clarify thoughts. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Self esteem
- Career difficulties
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English
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