About Ronena
Ronena Summers is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) practicing in California with 15 years of clinical experience. She focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, depression, relationship strain, family conflict, and the aftereffects of trauma and abuse. She aims to make the first step into therapy feel manageable and respectful.
She creates a calm, nonjudgmental space where clients can say what they’re feeling and thinking.
Background and approach
Sessions are based on talking through what’s happening now, and on small, practical steps that can reduce distress. She listens for patterns in relationships and emotions that keep problems repeating.
Her background includes work with a wide range of concerns such as abandonment, attachment issues, codependency, grief and hospice-related stress, chronic illness and pain, and problems that come up around divorce or blended families. That experience helps her notice common threads in complicated situations.
In sessions she draws on several approaches to match the work to each person’s needs, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, cognitive behavioral ideas, attachment-focused views, dialectical skills, and a client-centered stance. These are used to help people manage intense feelings and improve communication. She offers video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging.
People in California who prefer to begin online can complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule a first appointment.
Approaches that guide online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts without getting stuck in them and choose actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, stress, and decisions about difficult life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connect and teaches practical strategies to change unhelpful patterns; it often helps with anxiety and depression. Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on relationship patterns that form early in life and how those patterns affect current close relationships and emotional safety.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what feels most helpful. Together they decide whether to use ACT tools, CBT techniques, attachment-focused exploration, or a mix of methods to match the problem and the person's style.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for a full session that feels most like in-person work. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone needs a simple check-in. Live chat and text messaging can support brief updates, skill coaching, or check-ins between full sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or other busy schedules.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Multicultural concerns
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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