Erik Metzger

Erik Metzger is a California-based therapist with 14 years of clinical experience who helps adults, teens, couples and families access greater insight and resilience. He emphasizes practical skills and personal strengths to support people moving toward more resourced and contented lives.

He has a particular focus on addiction and related challenges, drawing on two decades of personal sobriety from alcohol and drugs to inform his work with clients and their loved ones. Early in his career he trained in addiction counseling through Hazelden Betty Ford’s graduate program, and he later completed a master’s degree in counseling psychology at Palo Alto University.

Erik has worked for a large hospital as a psychotherapist for the past six years, and he spent seven years working directly with adults, adolescents, couples and families. That combination of settings informs a collaborative, skills-based approach to recovery, grief, anxiety, relationship struggles and other difficulties.

His therapeutic toolbox includes perspectives shaped by training as a yoga instructor, a meditation practice, and experience as a competitive runner and triathlete - all of which he can use alongside traditional talk therapy to increase awareness of coping patterns. He also offers coaching around career and life transitions, and supports work on self-esteem, parenting, anger management and other concerns.

Erik is licensed in California as a marriage and family therapist; his professional credential is CA LMFT 106987. He aims to normalize and validate clients' experiences while helping them develop new skills and pathways to relief.

He encourages people to use the strength they already have to take practical steps forward. Asking for help and learning new ways of relating and coping can be difficult, and Erik welcomes the opportunity to work with clients as they begin that process.