Michael Southerland, LMFT

Michael Southerland is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) practicing in California with 12 years of professional experience. He works with adults who are struggling with stress, anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, intimacy-related issues, and LGBT-related matters. His profile also notes work with topics such as codependency, attachment and abandonment concerns, body image, addiction, and sexual culture matters like BDSM and kink.

Michael frames therapy around each person's own experience. He starts by listening to how someone describes their life and relationships. From there he uses conversational, goal-focused sessions to help people clarify what they want and what is getting in the way.

He draws on client-centered and cognitive behavioral approaches to look at patterns of thought and behavior, and on narrative and solution-focused ideas to reframe problems and find practical next steps. Sessions are collaborative rather than prescriptive; the client’s perspective steers the work.

Michael often helps people who keep putting others first, who struggle to say no, or who feel erased in relationships. He also supports people dealing with grief around changes like adoption, aging, or separation. In practice he aims to identify small, repeated patterns that lead to distress and to build clearer ways of setting limits and communicating needs.

People who choose him should expect straightforward sessions that emphasize listening, reflection, and doable exercises between meetings. He asks new clients to describe what matters most to them and what a reasonable first step would look like.

How Michael’s approaches translate to online sessions