About Colleen
Colleen Prendergast helps people who are facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, addiction, relationship and family concerns, and challenges like ADHD, bipolar disorder, and low self-esteem. She draws on a broad set of methods to support coping with life changes, reduce overwhelming feelings, and build practical skills for day-to-day life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 18 years of clinical experience in Wisconsin. She favors a straightforward, person-focused style.
How Colleen works
Sessions are rooted in listening first, then working together to set goals and try approaches that fit each person's needs. Her work combines techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and mindfulness. Those methods are used to help people notice patterns, change unhelpful thinking, manage strong emotions, and strengthen attention to values and purpose.
Colleen emphasizes a collaborative relationship. She aims to build trust and a nonjudgmental setting where people can talk about loss, anger, isolation, or career struggles. Practical skills and small experiments between sessions are commonly used to make steady progress.
She also addresses focused areas like caregiver stress, codependency, impulsivity, first responder issues, hospice and end-of-life concerns, and obsessive-compulsive patterns. Her style blends empathy with concrete tools so people leave sessions with clearer steps to try.
Colleen lists 11 ways of working on the entry:
What Colleen works with
The areas below are the ones Colleen selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- First responder issues
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Personality disorders
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Register | LPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 18 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Wisconsin |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How these approaches work in online therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages people to notice painful thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then choose actions that reflect personal values; it is often used for anxiety, depression, and life transitions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying and testing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and practicing new skills to reduce symptoms like worry, low mood, or compulsive habits. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) offers concrete emotion-regulation and distress-tolerance skills that help when emotions feel overwhelming or impulses are strong.Choosing the right approach is a team effort. Colleen will work collaboratively to understand a person’s goals and preferences, try methods that fit, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. That way the work stays practical and relevant to everyday life.
Online sessions use video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation, phone works well when bandwidth is limited, live chat can be useful for shorter check-ins, and messaging helps maintain momentum between appointments. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to keep working on skills between sessions.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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