Dr. Marva Bourne, LMFT
Calm, clear therapy for life and relationships
About Marva
Dr. Marva Bourne is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) practicing in California with nine years of experience.
Background and approach
She focuses on helping people facing stress, anxiety, relationship strains, grief, depression, and trauma-related concerns. Her style is collaborative and straightforward, aimed at practical changes rather than jargon.
She draws on attachment-based ideas to look at how early relationships shape current patterns. She also uses cognitive behavioral techniques to help people change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
Emotionally-focused work and elements of the Gottman Method guide sessions about closeness, conflict, and communication. Her background includes graduate study in marriage and family therapy and education counseling, and a doctoral-level focus on how early childhood trauma affects the brain and later life.
That foundation shapes how she assesses symptoms like panic, obsessive patterns, and sleep or eating struggles. She also brings experience with adoption, foster care, and blended family challenges.
Sessions tend to be practical and goal-oriented. People can expect a mix of listening, reflection, and concrete skill-building.
Work can include coping strategies for panic or OCD, planning around parenting stress, or rebuilding connection after infidelity. Dr.
Bourne offers sessions in English and provides video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Therapy uses a subscription model that can be canceled at any time, and scheduling follows the therapist's availability and matching process.
Therapeutic approaches and online sessions
Attachment-based therapy looks at how early relationships shape feeling and behavior. It helps people recognize patterns in close relationships and work toward more stable connection and emotional safety. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions; it offers practical tools to reduce panic attacks, manage intrusive thoughts, and change repetitive behaviors.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match their needs, goals, and preferences. That may mean combining attachment ideas with CBT or using emotionally-focused practices for relationship repair.
The practice offers flexible online options: video calls for in-depth sessions, phone sessions when bandwidth or camera use is limited, and live chat or text messaging for brief check-ins and ongoing support. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into work, school, or busy family life while keeping continuity between sessions.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 9 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English