About Colleen
Dr. Colleen Downes is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and life transitions. She also supports those facing grief, caregiving strain, parenting challenges, career questions, ADHD concerns, and relationship or family difficulties.
Her approach is practical and respectful, aimed at helping people take small, useful steps forward. She brings 35 years of clinical experience in New York to her sessions. Over her career she has worked with people coping with chronic medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, and cancer.
Background and approach
She has experience with adoption and foster care matters, attachment concerns, learning disabilities, and caregiver stress. Her style is warm and interactive. She listens closely and meets people where they are.
Dialog and goals are shaped to fit each person rather than using a one-size-fits-all plan. Dr. Downes uses a mix of psychodynamic ideas and solution-focused and client-centered methods.
That means she pays attention to past patterns that influence current feelings while also focusing on practical steps to change day-to-day problems. Mindfulness strategies are used to help manage anxiety and improve attention. Sessions typically aim to build coping skills, reduce overwhelming feelings, and clarify next steps.
She emphasizes respect, compassion, and a nonjudgmental attitude while helping people develop tools for ongoing challenges.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Client-centered work focuses on the person in front of the therapist. It involves listening carefully and reflecting back what matters most to the client so goals come from the client's priorities. This style helps with self-esteem, decision making, and feeling heard. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce anxiety and manage strong emotions. These techniques are useful for staying calmer in daily life and for problems like anxiety, stress, and difficulty focusing. Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will discuss options and help decide which ideas or techniques fit your needs and goals. That choice will be revisited as progress is made so the plan evolves with your situation. Online formats provide flexibility for busy lives. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth or cameras are limited, and live chat or text messaging work well for brief check-ins or when typing feels more comfortable. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or medical schedules while keeping focus on practical coping skills and steady progress.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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