Leslie Westbrook

Leslie Westbrook is a licensed marriage and family therapist who focuses on helping people recover from trauma and manage everyday stress. She brings five years of clinical experience to sessions and aims to make therapy feel approachable and practical for clients. Leslie works in California and offers services in English to people both inside and outside the U.S.

Leslie uses a mix of approaches tailored to each person's needs. She draws on mindfulness practices to help people notice how they feel in the moment. She also integrates cognitive behavioral ideas to identify unhelpful thinking patterns and DBT strategies for managing strong emotions.

In sessions she emphasizes clear, doable steps. People can expect a calm, nonjudgmental tone and concrete tools to try between appointments. The work often includes practicing simple mindfulness exercises, reviewing coping skills, and talking through painful memories at a pace that feels right.

Her areas of focus include anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and the emotional effects of abuse. Additional topics she addresses are attachment issues, guilt and shame, forgiveness, social anxiety, post-traumatic stress, self-love, and women's issues.

Leslie also offers coaching-style support when clients want goal-focused work, such as building new habits or improving emotional regulation. To begin, she asks people about their goals and collaborates on a plan that fits their life and schedule.

How Leslie blends approaches for online therapy

Leslie uses Mindfulness Therapy to help people become more aware of sensations, thoughts, and emotions in the present moment; this often involves short breathing or awareness exercises that people can practice between appointments. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on spotting unhelpful thinking styles and testing new behaviors to change mood and stress. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, offers concrete emotion regulation and distress-tolerance skills to manage intense feelings and improve day-to-day coping.

Choosing the right approach is a team effort. Leslie will talk with each person about their goals, symptoms, and preferences, then suggest methods to try. She collaborates on a plan and adjusts methods as progress is made so the work stays aligned with what the person needs.

The original biography did not list specific online session formats, so please confirm current session options before booking. Many people find online therapy helpful because it can fit into workdays, reduce travel time, and make it easier to try short check-ins or regular weekly sessions. Online sessions can support the same skills practice used in office visits, such as guided mindfulness exercises, brief homework reviews, and stepwise trauma work adapted to the pace someone prefers.