About Leslie
Leslie Patricia Acoca is a California licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) with 20 years of clinical experience. She offers a calm, straightforward style and helps people address stress, anxiety, trauma, grief, relationship and intimacy concerns. She also supports people dealing with parenting strain, addiction, self-esteem, career shifts, and LGBT-related issues.
Leslie creates a warm, trusting space for people to talk through hard moments. Sessions focus on practical steps and clearer thinking.
How Leslie works
Conversations move at the client’s pace and emphasize useful skills for day-to-day life. Her background includes long experience supporting people through loss, including grief after suicide. She also works with those coping with hospice and end-of-life matters, infidelity, jealousy, and veteran and armed forces issues.
Multicultural concerns are part of her work and she attends to how culture shapes relationships and coping. Therapeutic tools include attachment-based approaches, client-centered listening, cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior strategies, and the Gottman method for relationship challenges. These tools are used to reduce distress, manage emotions, and improve connection with others.
Leslie offers sessions in English and accepts international clients. She blends practical problem-solving with empathetic listening so people leave with clearer steps and more hope.
Leslie lists 5 ways of working on the entry:
What Leslie works with
The areas below are the ones Leslie selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 20 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | California |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Online approaches for connection and coping
Attachment-based work focuses on how relationships shape feelings and reactions. It helps people notice patterns in bonds and learn new ways to feel safer with others. Client-centered therapy emphasizes empathic listening and collaboration so people feel heard while they sort out what matters to them. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, offers concrete strategies to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and is useful for anxiety, stress, and coping with life changes.Finding the right approach is part of the collaborative process. Leslie will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what feels most helpful. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan over time based on what works for the client.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to stay engaged. Video calls let people meet face to face when a fuller conversation is needed. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or for a focused check-in. Live chat and text-based messaging are useful for shorter updates, skill practice between sessions, or when someone prefers writing to speaking. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or travel schedules.
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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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