Conman with delusions of being a brilliant therapist, abused his position but careful not to cross the line to actually get caught, gets angry and starts mocking and changing the subject when therapy clients talk about his problematic behaviors, his whole aura of body language and tone and word choice pressures you to go along with his delusion, he hates hearing when people notice that things about him do not add up. He manipulates people and should not be trusted nor should his advice be followed due to being a mix of negative untrue horrible ideas with legitimate therapy as well as his own disturbed understanding of his life experience. Consistent with the textbook description of his personality profile of malignant narcissism and psychopathy the reason he doesn’t respond well when put into question is that as scary as it sounds - he lacks remorse. He literally told me he doesn’t care if I accidentally harm other people as long as it doesn’t affect him. This is an abnormal, perverse, dishonest, manipulative and theatrical person with problematic inter-personal and personal issues which make him a harmful therapist. His patients need to educate themselves about the psychopathy and malignant narcissism personality profile and psychology of cult leaders and charlatans.

Submitted June 19, 2023

As a patient in his group, I could see the apparent psychopathy in front of me and blatant efforts to convince people around him that it was okay. The negative manipulative dynamic with superficial charm which constitutes his bedside manner affected me badly. The advice was recognised by other professionals as outright incorrect, and yet he insisted it “might be good”.

Submitted March 2, 2023

the guy is a psychopath and Dr Gina below is kooky. that is the bottom line. i can explain in exact detail, but that is the gist of it. calling people names is bad, but that one sentence sums it up. i don't know what the deal is in between, either the psychopath put on a brilliant show for his colleagues and has charmed and convinced them, or maybe they are both into being unethical and getting the patients to serve their needs and not the other way. probably a bit of both. they are not brilliant outliers as they'd like you to think, they unethical providers who provide below the standard of care and break the first rule of medical ethics which is 'Do no harm.' sorry guys, you don't belong in this profession and too bad the board of psychologists allows such characters to practice in Massachusetts.

Submitted Nov. 16, 2022

The guy trained me to be abusive to people. Everyone in the group eventually started having conflicts with their parents, when they did not before. He praised them for it and instructed them to be abusive to each other promising this is how you have relationships, progress, and 'get to happy.' Never happened, just traumatized and damaged our families and people in our social networks. He also approaches this in a manipulative manner, so people are promised one thing, but then taught this nasty harmful behavior or rather a system of behaviors. The guy is very manipulative and teaches people to alternate between being abusive and superficially charming. The damage to people's families and personal development is catastrophic, and the worst thing is people have no idea he is doing this to them because he tells them otherwise and then attacks those who call him out on this. But most people don't understand that someone licensed and presenting himself as he does could be doing something so bad, so they kind of give him the benefit of the doubt, and he takes advantage of it. The guy's personality profile is characteristic of manipulative people who do unethical things while appearing totally innocent and very convincing. In fact, the guy should be a case study in how the wrong personality abuses the power in their position as someone's psychotherapist, not in anything he does physically, but strictly in what he says to clients behind closed doors. That makes it impossible for the Board of Psychologists to police his verbal and non verbal communication with clients behind closed doors. If he broke HIPPA or touched someone, then it would be simple, but because what he does is more elusive, he can always weasel out of it, with the numerous notes he takes, potentially because people have sued him in the past.

Submitted Nov. 6, 2022

RE: to the cult member going out of his way to post positive reviews.. this is a standard cult member phenomenon described by research.. "Denial can continue to protect the cult member’s beliefs even after the cult leader has been shown to be a charlatan...Loyal members of a cult believe that their leader has magically transformed their lives and relieved their longing and suffering. On that basis, they will staunchly defend their leader even when his or her crimes are exposed” (Shaw, 2003, p. 118).

Submitted July 18, 2022

Speaking for myself I am surprised to see negative reviews of Jim's work. I have worked with Jim for more than 30 years off and on. I have participated in 3 different groups and seen him off and on for individual therapy. While there were times he would say things to me that I did not want to hear, in retrospect they were always things I needed to hear. This is, after all, what therapy is all about. After thirty years, the relationship between a therapist and a patient is by definition going to be strong. Jim has reinforced this strength by, at times, going above and beyond the call of duty to provide support and reinforcement. In more ways than one Jim has changed my life for the better.

Submitted July 14, 2022

About Leon - I imagine people like Leon who grew up in traumatic senseless confusingly abusive households recreate the same dynamic for others as it’s how they tend to think and operate, so he was teaching us to create senseless confusing abusive insanity in our own families as a way to problem solve and communicate. It’s amazing I am still stuck in creating the same senseless abusive confusion. Another aspect of it is that I imagine he read the part in the group therapy manual and theory books where it says group therapists should instigate conflicts between group members so that they learn to navigate conflict ridden relationships with each other, which, in his case at least, in practice mainly ends up teaching the group members to create senseless abusive confusing conflicts with each other and with people outside of group which confuses and brings everyone down needlessly and is actually a skill to unlearn and not pay someone to teach you. Like imagine if you paid someone to learn to abuse your kids - it would not be in any sane person’s interest to pay for that, so essentially group members are paying Leon to teach them to instigate and develop these senseless abusive confusing situations with their friends, family and people around them, which is a poor and uneducated consumer choice on their part. Be a smart consumer of psychotherapy and shop around for a therapist, tell someone else exactly what Leon is telling you and then check if others find the behavior useful and desirable. In my case, my family found the behavior Leon taught to be undesirable, however, I was so manipulated by him that I cannot unlearn it! Really, walking into his office is a tragedy in my and my family’s life. And something tells me that perhaps Leon’s family may have been a lot more dysfunctional than mine, so don’t try to tell me that my family is “just used to old ways which are not better.” Friends and coworkers had the same condemning reaction of what Leon taught me! People have been told by their other therapists that what Leon did is not any recognized form of therapy and is actually the opposite of what is recommended! Don’t assume that just because Leonard tells you he is the best and that his advice is beneficial that it is actually so - go and actually check with a trustworthy source and describe exactly what happened and what he said, not how he told you to interpret it. This guy is very practiced in knowing how to weasel out when someone tries to pin him down on inappropriate therapy, behavior and advice, but don’t let this nasty fish off the hook!

His patients tend to be people with abusive, neurodivergent, poorly fitting parents and families and parents who were maladapted to each other and just people lacking good common sense when it comes to what makes a good social bond. You come in and see Leon’s confusing abuse and you get into it because you intuitively like it and go deeper down that path of that type of crazy abusive thinking because that is where you came from and so you seek it out. But then years later after having the misfortune of interacting with Leon, you realize it was all for naught and a waste of time, energy and just senseless mistreatment of each other.

It’s such a simple reality that one does not realize it and looks past it, but it is as simple as that. We went from perhaps a crazy household, into a crazy therapy organized by a guy who himself was from a similar type of crazy household now teaching you to continue recreating similar craziness as a way of life. I don’t know why I did not recognize this as pointless and harmful, but him telling us this is the answer to overcome our personal developmental life challenges is a big reason why!

Yeah, I started applying my own maladapted and deficient ways of trying to be friends with people as soon as I joined group. In the back of my head I thought that I knew I wasn’t socializing normally and knew that the group was communicating in a non-kosher and abnormal and suboptimal way, but Leon kept telling me this is how you get to the other side where you have good communication with people. I literally saw it as abnormal communication to be used as a crutch to achieve some partial mutual
understanding with people and then after gaining practice this way to stop doing it and socialize normally. Except I just got stuck socializing abnormally and all my family hate Leon’s way of socializing. It’s truly a waste of years of my life and a tragedy for my family.

Submitted Jan. 18, 2022

I don’t think Dr. Leone is good for people in crisis. Rather, you should see him for racist dating advice and advice on new ways to disrespect one’s parents.

Submitted Jan. 3, 2022

Besides keeping a patient for 10+ years in therapy being a questionable practice due to 'no effect' or 'dependence on therapist', let me explain my other concerns. Firstly, Dr Leone told me in individual therapy “I will be sadistic if you let me.” This is in conflict with APA ethics code 2.06, "Personal Problems and Conflicts - When psychologists become aware of personal problems that may interfere with their performing work related duties adequately, they take appropriate measures, such as obtaining professional consultation or assistance, and determine whether they should limit, suspend, or terminate their work-related duties." If he feels sadistic, he should not be doing therapy.

Secondly, I told him the group may not be good for me, and another person told him that he made them feel worse than before they joined the group and he dismissed and degraded us. This is in conflict with APA ethics code 3.04 Avoiding Harm, "Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients..and do not participate in, facilitate, assist, or otherwise engage in torture, defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person, or in any other cruel, inhuman, or degrading behavior that violates 3.04a." He failed to warn of possible harm and change course at all when patients told him the group was making them miserable, and worsen their situation over many months. He would say 'this is not a support group', 'this is work for real change,' ‘now is when it gets really good,’ making you believe it was sort of growing pains or no pain - no gain scenario. I know of 5-10 people who in real life who were unhappy with him after spending more than a few months in the group, so there is more of us than you know of.

One time, he said he was 'doing an experiment by placing a person with a type of diagnosis that never makes it in group therapy because he likes to always do personal experiments in his practice just to see'.

Fouthly, his discussing patients’ unpaid bills in group may be degrading, and even cruel. Another time, he essentially had people with unpaid bills surrender their right to absolute confidentiality of their billing records, discussing people's unpaid bills in group therapy because it would be good for the person as well as others in their therapy process. Was it therapy, or a nasty attempt to collect on unpaid bills by putting peer pressure on the person with the unpaid bill? We will never know. But if your bill is way overdue, you shouldn't let the person rake up the bill even further is what I think. I used to feel bad for him, but again, that's inappropriate to make patients feel bad for you as a therapist, don't you think? Maybe.. manipulative even?

Submitted Oct. 10, 2021

how he really got me to stick with the group: I was on the fence about joining because I did not see a point in being with mentally ill people or with people on disability; so I asked who is in the group and he said - artists, professionals, all kinds of people, blah - with a sly convincing smile. And then I said I want to get practice talking to women to help me with dating and he said, THE WOMEN IN THE GROUP WILL GO CRAZY OVER YOU IF YOU JOIN.

and then I was away for two weeks and got a phone call on my cell phone from him asking where I am and checking in on me to make sure I come back and he said BECAUSE THE DANGER IS THAT PEOPLE QUIT JUST WHEN THINGS ARE GETTING REALLY GOOD.  I think he called me the second week too to make sure I come back. And then I went to the group religiously after that for years, till I noticed bad patterns about him. And I called him out on it. This is what I told him: “You f people, and I mean you don’t f with people, you f people and then heal them later, and you repeat this cycle over and over again. F someone, then heal them”, I noticed this pattern of his and it looked unethical and manipulative, and look what the article says about what he may have been doing: “People with low self-esteem are easier to break down, then build back up in an effort to teach them that the cult is the supportive environment they’re looking for.” Anyway, I think the public needs to know about this, so that other former clients don’t second guess themselves and see that he said the same stuff to other people, that it’s routine he does to get people to join and stay. He uses the same techniques as shady churches and multi level marketing schemes like Mary Kay, Avon, Herbalife - to get people to join and stay with him. The dynamics are so similar and some of the words like “don’t leave because it is just getting good” are the same.

Submitted June 16, 2021