About Leonard
Leonard Burns is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addictions, and relationship struggles. He supports concerns around trauma and abuse, intimacy, sleep problems, parenting strain, ADHD, and issues related to identity and LGBT concerns.
Background and approach
He brings straightforward, steady care and clear communication to sessions. He draws on 35 years of clinical experience and uses practical, evidence-informed methods.
Sessions focus on building a reliable therapeutic relationship first. From there he works with each person to set realistic goals and try approaches that fit their situation and pace.
His practice blends several approaches including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, attachment work, client-centered methods, cognitive behavioral strategies, and existential ideas. He helps people with complex trauma, cancer survivorship, chronic illness, and codependency by combining tools for symptom relief with attention to life meaning and values.
Leonard emphasizes honest feedback and steady problem-solving in the room. He listens for patterns that keep a problem going and helps clients try small experiments to change them.
He also supports people coping with major life changes, abandonment wounds, and caregiver stress. Based in California, he offers flexible session formats so therapy can fit into a busy life.
He aims to make the process manageable and to help clients build new habits that last.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on clarifying personal values and learning practical ways to act on them despite difficult thoughts or feelings; it can help with anxiety, depression, and life transitions. Attachment-Based Therapy pays attention to how early bonds shape current relationships and emotional responses, and it can be useful for intimacy issues, abandonment wounds, and relationship patterns. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes a warm, nonjudgmental relationship where the therapist listens and reflects so clients can find their own solutions and sense of direction.Deciding which approach to use is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals, try methods that fit those goals, and adjust the plan based on what helps. That way the work evolves with the client's needs and preferences rather than sticking to one fixed technique.
Online sessions offer practical flexibility. Video calls let people work face-to-face without travel, phone sessions are useful when bandwidth or camera use is limited, and live chat or text-based messaging can be a shorter way to check in between meetings. These options make it easier to keep therapy consistent around work, caregiving, or medical needs.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Visually impaired
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English