About Lesley
Lesley Schwam is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) based in California. She uses practical strategies to help people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and ADHD-related challenges. Sessions focus on clear steps people can try between meetings to make everyday life easier.
Lesley draws from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Solution-Focused Therapy to keep work concrete and goal-oriented. She helps clients learn coping skills, build better boundaries, and improve communication.
Background and approach
Early sessions often map immediate concerns and set short-term goals to create momentum. Her practice also addresses trauma and abuse, addiction and relapse, chronic illness and pain, and the emotional fallout of major life changes. Lesley supports people navigating career shifts, retirement transitions, divorce and separation, and the strain of caregiving.
She pays attention to family-of-origin patterns and blended family issues when they affect daily functioning. Therapy typically starts with learning self-care routines and coping techniques. Lesley emphasizes practical tools such as thought tracking, behavior experiments, and problem-solving exercises.
Over time clients work on longer-term aims like rebuilding self-esteem and repairing intimacy-related difficulties. With 12 years of experience, Lesley aims for collaborative work that feels manageable. She guides clients in setting realistic steps and celebrates progress along the way.
Sessions are meant to be actionable so people leave with things to try between visits.
How Lesley’s Approaches Work Online
Lesley uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice how thoughts, feelings, and actions link together and then try small changes. CBT often involves keeping simple records of thoughts and testing new behaviors to reduce anxiety or depression symptoms.She also uses Solution-Focused Therapy which concentrates on identifying practical next steps and building on what already works. This approach is useful for setting short-term goals, improving communication, and making steady progress through life changes.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Lesley works with each person to decide which strategies fit their goals and preferences, and she adjusts plans as progress is made. The early sessions usually focus on immediate coping skills and a few manageable goals.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video is helpful for deeper conversations and visual cues, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, live chat suits quick check-ins, and messaging supports ongoing adjustments between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or busy days while keeping treatment practical and goal-focused.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 12 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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