About Erik
Erik Tootell is a California psychologist with four decades of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and attention concerns like ADHD. He keeps conversations straightforward and listens closely so clients feel heard. Taking the first step toward change can feel hard, and he aims to make that step easier to take.
He focuses on creating an open, nonjudgmental space where people can talk about what’s most troubling them.
Background and approach
Sessions prioritize practical strategies for day-to-day life, concrete ways to handle concentration and memory struggles, and steps for managing strong emotions. The work is collaborative and paced to each person’s needs. Over 40 years in practice has given him broad experience with trauma and abuse, long-term caregiving stress, chronic health issues, and relationship communication problems.
He also supports people coping with adoption or foster care questions, abandonment, and age-related concerns. That background informs how he listens and what he offers in sessions. Erik uses well-established, evidence-based therapeutic techniques to guide sessions while tailoring tools to what each person needs most.
He helps people break problems into manageable pieces and build routines that improve daily functioning. Progress often comes from small changes repeated over time. He is licensed in California as CA Psychologist 21367 and conducts sessions in English.
People who want straightforward, experienced guidance for attention, mood, or stress-related concerns may find his approach a good fit.
Evidence-based approaches and online support
Erik uses evidence-based therapeutic techniques that focus on practical change and clearer thinking. One approach centers on organizing daily routines and tasks to reduce overwhelm and improve attention and memory; this helps people who struggle with concentration or ADHD-related challenges. Another approach emphasizes coping skills for anxiety, depression, and trauma-related symptoms, teaching breathing, grounding, and stepwise exposure to reduce distress and rebuild confidence.Finding the right approach is part of the work. He collaborates with each person to choose methods that match their goals, needs, and comfort level. Together they review what’s working and adjust tools or strategies as therapy progresses, making changes when needed to keep momentum.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video lets people use visual cues and a closer conversation, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and text or chat can support brief check-ins or notes between sessions. These options help fit therapy into busy schedules and allow consistent contact even when in-person visits are not practical.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Antisocial personality
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Blended family issues
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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