About Leonard
Leonard Burns is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with long experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and relationship struggles. He also supports those coping with trauma and abuse, addiction concerns, intimacy-related issues, sleep problems, ADHD, and the strain of parenting. Leonard brings a calm, straightforward presence so people can feel heard and understood from the first session.
He has practiced in California since 1990 and draws on 35 years of clinical work.
Background and approach
His background combines family systems ideas, psychodynamic perspectives, EMDR, and somatic awareness to address how the body and mind store distress. Treatment focuses on building a reliable therapeutic relationship before introducing tools and exercises. Sessions typically begin by clarifying what matters most to the client and setting small, doable goals.
He uses practical techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people change unhelpful patterns. Attachment-based and client-centered methods guide how he approaches trust and connection. Leonard is comfortable helping people facing identity questions, cancer survivorship, chronic illness, caregiving stress, and complicated loss.
He pays attention to how emotions show up in the body and encourages grounding and regulation skills alongside talk therapy. The pace is collaborative and tailored to each person's needs. People who choose his care usually want a steady, experienced therapist who mixes practical strategies with attention to relationships and bodily experience.
He offers sessions in English and provides video, phone, live chat, and text-based options to fit different schedules and comfort levels.
How somatic and evidence-based approaches work online
Somatic-informed work pays attention to how stress shows up in the body. In an online session this might mean noticing breath, posture, muscle tension, or movement as part of the conversation to help reduce physical arousal and improve regulation.Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on clarifying values and learning practical skills to accept difficult thoughts while taking meaningful action. It can help with anxiety, depression, and life changes by teaching flexible responses to hard feelings.
Attachment-Based Therapy looks at patterns of relating and trust that developed early in life. It helps people understand how those patterns affect current relationships and practice new ways of connecting and setting boundaries.
Deciding which approach to use is a collaborative process. Leonard will work with each person to weigh their goals, comfort, and preferences and then adapt techniques over time so the work fits the individual's needs.
Online sessions offer flexibility for busy schedules and for people who prefer meeting from home. Video calls allow face-to-face work, while phone, live chat, and text-based messaging give different ways to communicate between sessions. These options make it easier to keep continuity and practice skills in daily life.
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