About Marlene
Marlene Favors is a California-based therapist who helps people facing stress, anxiety, addiction, anger, and low self-esteem. She explains things plainly and focuses on practical steps that fit everyday life.
Background and approach
Sessions are offered in English and Spanish and draw on methods that aim to change unhelpful patterns and build new skills. With 11 years of clinical experience and a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) credential, she draws on several evidence-informed approaches.
She uses clear tools to manage emotions, improve communication, and handle life changes like separation or career shifts. Her work emphasizes small, doable steps rather than abstract theory.
Marlene pays attention to how past relationships shape current reactions, including abandonment and attachment issues. She also helps people coping with caregiver stress, immigration-related challenges, and feelings of emptiness or isolation.
Conversations often include concrete strategies for setting boundaries and reducing daily overwhelm. Addiction and substance use concerns are addressed with motivational techniques and practical planning.
When anger or control issues arise, sessions focus on recognizing triggers and choosing different responses. She supports exploration of guilt, shame, and forgiveness with steady, nonjudgmental guidance.
The goal is to leave sessions with clear next steps and skills to practice between meetings. Marlene frames therapy as a collaborative process where clients set priorities and test what works.
That approach helps people build confidence and move toward the life changes they want.
Online approaches that build practical skills
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on identifying personal values and taking small committed actions toward them, which can help with feelings of emptiness and life transitions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and offers concrete exercises to reduce anxiety and change unhelpful habits. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills that are useful for anger, intense feelings, and impulse control.Marlene treats finding the right approach as a team effort. She listens to each person's goals and preferences and adapts methods to match what feels most useful. That way therapy stays focused on real-life changes rather than fitting a single method to every situation.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video calls are good for deeper conversations and skills practice, phone sessions can fit into a lunch break or require less bandwidth, and live chat or messaging work well for brief check-ins or ongoing support between meetings. These options make it easier to keep therapy consistent around work, caregiving, or travel commitments.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Anger management
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Attachment issues
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Self esteem
- Self-love
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English, Spanish