About Leslie
Leslie Cates is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) based in Louisiana with ten years of counseling experience. She works with people facing anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, stress, low self-esteem, and major life changes. Her approach is direct and compassionate, aimed at helping clients feel understood and make practical changes.
Leslie uses a client-centered style that places each person’s goals first. She listens, then she matches tools to what the client needs.
Background and approach
Sessions tend to focus on strengths and small steps that build toward clearer thinking and healthier behavior. She blends methods from cognitive-behavioral work and acceptance-based approaches to help people rethink unhelpful thoughts and develop willingness to act differently. Leslie also uses techniques from dialectical behavior work to help manage strong emotions and from emotionally-focused ideas when relationship concerns are present.
Her background includes a Master of Arts in Counseling earned in New Orleans in 2016. Over the past decade she has worked with people affected by childhood trauma, abusive relationships, PTSD, and complicated grief, guiding them through processing and coping skills. Leslie aims to make therapy practical and respectful.
She helps clients set clear goals and track progress. If someone is ready to try counseling, she offers steady support and collaborative planning to move toward change.
Therapeutic approaches and how they work online
Leslie commonly draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help people become more willing to notice difficult thoughts and move toward values-based action. ACT emphasizes practical exercises and small behavior changes to reduce the power of distressing thoughts.She also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to identify and shift unhelpful thinking patterns. CBT includes straightforward tools such as thought records and behavioral experiments that fit well into remote sessions and between-session work.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Leslie collaborates with each person to choose methods that match their goals, needs, and daily life. She adjusts techniques when something isn’t helping and combines methods when that makes sense.
Online therapy offers several practical advantages. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, while phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging support brief check-ins, skill practice, and ongoing contact between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and to use exercises in real time where they matter most.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Louisiana
- Languages
- English