About Leona
Leona Pusey-Rigg welcomes people who are feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or worn out by life’s changes. She is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) based in Florida with 15 years of clinical experience. She focuses on practical steps to reduce stress, manage mood, and rebuild everyday functioning.
She meets people where they are and aims to make the work straightforward and understandable. Leona uses clear, goal-oriented sessions to help people notice what matters and take small steps toward it.
Background and approach
Sessions often include exercises to shift unhelpful thoughts, build coping skills, and practice calming attention. She pays attention to how life events - like loss, illness, or big transitions - affect daily routines and relationships. Her approach blends cognitive behavioral ideas with acceptance and mindfulness strategies.
She also draws on motivational techniques and a client-centered stance to support motivation and choice. Together, these methods are used to address anxiety, depression, grief, chronic health concerns, caregiver strain, and other mood or stress-related struggles. Leona emphasizes a respectful, nonjudgmental relationship.
She aims to validate feelings while helping people identify strengths and realistic next steps. Treatment plans are personalized and focused on practical results in daily life. Sessions are offered through online formats including video calls, phone, live chat, and text messaging.
Leona works in English and practices from Florida as an LCSW (FL LCSW SW13424).
Practical therapy approaches for online care
Leona often uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people identify and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. This approach is useful for anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and daily mood management. She also uses acceptance and commitment therapy which focuses on clarifying values and taking small actions that matter even when feelings are difficult. That method can help with long-term stress, grief, and coping with health or life transitions.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Leona treats therapy as a collaboration and will help figure out which methods fit a person’s needs and goals. She adapts strategies over time based on what is helpful and what the person prefers.
Online formats available include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls let people use visual cues and practice skills in real time. Phone sessions can be simpler when internet bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text messaging are useful for brief check-ins or ongoing support between sessions. These options make it easier to schedule therapy around work, caregiving duties, and health limitations.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Domestic violence
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Sleeping disorders
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English