LMFT, 16 years of experience
Greetings. I’m David Joel Miller, licensed in California as a Marriage and Family Therapist and a Professional Clinical Counselor. Before entering private practice, I worked as a substance abuse counselor and for my local County Behavioral Health. I specialize in helping clients navigate life’s transitions and overcome depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. After working as a substance abuse counselor and then a marriage and family therapist, I also completed the requirements for licensure as a professional clinical Counselor. I am also a certified life coach. I think of myself as an indoor mountain climber. I don’t like getting out in the cold and rain, but I do like taking on new challenges. I read a great deal and have learned a lot, but I continue to learn more things each day. Like most people my age, I have the frustrations of coping with technology. But one of my interns taught me how to answer texts, and now my younger family friends are teaching me how to use iPads and streaming videos. I hope that these experiences give me some insight into how things are changing and how some things don’t change at all. I’d like to accompany you as you try to work through your life challenges.
The first session will begin by getting to know each other. We will explore the challenges you’re currently facing and map out a process to help you cope with those issues. I look forward to hearing about your struggles in the past, the lessons you learned from them, and where you’d like to go in the future. I try to approach problems from the perspective of experience. And hopefully I can help you overcome the obstacles in your path.
My hope is that my life experiences can be helpful to you. Those life experiences have made me more understanding and empathetic towards the people I see. I have worked in various occupations, been married and divorced, and had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I’ve been going to school for over 70 years now, either as a student or a teacher, and I’m still incredibly curious about other people’s lives and how they make them work. I worked for a while as a substance abuse counselor and saw the devastation that drugs and alcohol can cause to individuals and families. I’ve learned firsthand about having to change careers and reinvent myself, and I’ve had to learn about the process of grieving the loss of family and friends and still creating meaning and purpose in my life as I now enter my seventy-sixth year on planet Earth. I would like to be a part of your creating a flourishing life.
Life’s transitions can be difficult, and they can affect your mental and emotional health. Whether it’s your career, your relationship, or dealing with grief and loss, talking with a professional counselor can help you get through the difficult times in life. Keeping your life in balance means coordinating your thinking, feelings, and behaviors. Life transitions have been a major focus of my work over the last 20 years. If you need to talk about life’s challenges, let’s schedule a consultation and see if professional therapy is right for you.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy emphasizes how thoughts affect your feelings and behavior.
Person Centered Counseling involves exploration of emotions and feelings and invites you to tell your story as a way of making sense of your life.
If you’ve experienced painful losses, grief therapy can help you make sense of those losses and find new directions for your life.
10 ratings with written reviews
August 16, 2025
I felt like I was talking with a friend. He was professional and at the same time took time to share his own experiences and that was helpful. We are similar in age and were able to connect good. He always brought things back to a matter of simple steps to take to end the sessions. I can still draw from those lessons. I would connect again with him if we were in the same coverage area.
August 3, 2025
Very nice and compassionate.
July 24, 2025
I like David's style. He is knowledgeable and solution oriented but warm and humorous at the same time. I look forward to working with him.