About Mary
Mary Downer is a licensed independent social worker in Ohio with 17 years of professional experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, trauma, anger, and depression. Mary describes therapy as a practical partnership where people use their own strengths to move forward.
Her sessions center on plain talk and clear steps. She uses techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and try different ways of responding.
Background and approach
For trauma-related concerns she draws on trauma-focused therapy to address painful memories and reduce their hold on daily life. Mary often works with challenges that include ADHD, grief, compulsive behaviors, panic, and post-traumatic stress. She also supports people dealing with caregiving strain, compassion fatigue, parenting strain, and issues around identity and relationships.
Practical problem solving and small changes are common parts of her approach. The tone in sessions is open and nonjudgmental. Mary aims to create space where people can talk through what feels hard and test new coping strategies.
She prefers brief, concrete exercises alongside longer conversations when they are helpful. Sessions are offered in English and delivered online through a mix of video calls, phone, live chat, or text messaging. People start by completing a short matching questionnaire and then schedule sessions based on availability.
How Mary’s Approaches Work Online
Mary uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people identify thoughts and actions that keep anxiety and low mood going. CBT focuses on simple experiments and practice tasks that can be done between sessions to change how people react to stress.She also uses trauma-focused therapy to help process upsetting memories and reduce their impact on daily life. This approach breaks big problems into smaller steps so people can slowly regain control over reactions and reminders.
Finding the right approach is collaborative. Mary will talk with each person about goals, try methods that fit their situation, and adjust as needed. She values input from the person in choosing which techniques to use and how fast to move.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy easier to fit into life. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and screen-sharing for worksheets. Phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited or for a shorter check-in. Live chat or text messaging can be useful for quick skill coaching, brief check-ins, or when typing feels more comfortable. These options support flexibility while using CBT and trauma-focused tools in ways that suit each person’s routine.
Questions people ask
What concerns does Mary help with?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What credential and location should I know about?
Can sessions be conducted in other languages or internationally?
Which session formats are available?
How does pricing work?
What do I do to begin therapy?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Anger management
Also listed
- ADHD
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 17 years
- Licensed
- Ohio
- Languages
- English
We will earn a commission if you sign up through our link, at no cost to you.