Life and relationships are hard! They don’t come with instruction manuals and we rarely have an open or constructive dialogue about how it’s going. My name is Drew Erickson, and my role is not to ‘fix you’ or tell you what to do, but rather to help you access your own wisdom and collaborate with you to make the difficult stuff a bit easier. I believe that people are not problems – problems are problems. These problems often obscure our own knowledge and convince us that we are broken or stuck. My hope is to show you that you are an expert in your own life.
As a former elementary school teacher and participant in therapy as an adolescent, I recognize the gaps in formal education and the value of mental health. So much of what we are expected to do, feel, and think is supposed to be learned intuitively and in isolation rather than explicitly and in the community.
Our brains are incredible at a variety of things, but focusing and recalling successes or positives is often not one of them! When so much of life and self-improvement focuses on what is going wrong, I’m interested in what is going right. Whether it’s out-of-control relationships with electronics, difficulty with identity development, behavior problems at home or school, parent-child relationships, or partner relationships, I am here to support you in figuring out what is both preferred and possible. I have helped clients ages 6-70 with anxiety, depression, relationship building and maintaining, and life transitions.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and a Masters’s Degree in Counseling from San Diego State University. My article “Applying Narrative Therapy with Young People who Engage in Video Gaming” was published in the Journal of Systemic Therapies in 2018.
I recognize the significance of privilege and multiculturalism, especially in today’s sociopolitical environment. I cannot be an effective therapist without acknowledging the effects of racism, heteronormativity, gender biases, ableism, and other operations of power. My graduate studies as well as my professional development trainings have had, and always will have social justice and multicultural lens.
My passions aside from my professional work include cooking, sports, physical activity, my numerous house plants, and animals.
Trainings from the San Diego Center for Children:
- Play Therapy
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Non-Suicidal Self Injurious Behavior
- Safe and Practice Approaches (SPA)
Other Trainings:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy level 1
- National Conversation on Race
- NeuroScience of Trauma
Areas of Focus
- Children and Adolescents
- Academic, athletic, or other extracurricular performance issues
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Child + Adolescent anxiety and social challenges
- Co-parenting challenges
- Developing coping skills
- Identity development
- Parenting stress
- Video game/technology addiction