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.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
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.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
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.