Category Archives: Counseling and Therapy

Wrapping up 2025 and my life

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Changing your life

Time for a life change?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Wrapping up 2025 and my life.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

There is less than a week to go in 2025, and I’m already thinking about all those things I wanted to do this year that didn’t get done. I’m also very mindful of all the things I hadn’t planned on that I did, or that happened to me.

Since I was born before 1950, I’m painfully aware that the century of my birthday disappeared long before I was ready to leave it and that my time on earth may well be running out. That started me thinking about the meaning of life and all the things that I have learned while making this journey.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m in no rush to exit this earth. I have told my romantic partner that I have definite plans for my 100th birthday and that she is an essential part of those plans.

There are two contrary forces setting the course of our lives as we age. We have that process of constantly learning new things and having new experiences. At the same time, aging results in some very necessary losses.

Having passed my 75th birthday and rapidly approaching my 80th, I am acutely aware that some things will become more difficult and some things may well become impossible. I’m not especially resigned to that process.

I have told my clients over the last year, and those few friends who will listen, that I have been learning far more about the process of getting old than I ever wanted to know. Entering is just the most recent change in a long string of life changes I’ve experienced. Because people are living longer and the percentage of older people in the population has been growing, there’s more notice being paid to these issues. Still, the principles involved in undergoing change are remarkably similar regardless of what change you are experiencing.

Within that process of aging, each person undergoes certain transitions. Of course, the process of undergoing transitions is not limited to the old or the almost old. The events that happened during COVID. Since roughly 2020, the process of transitional change has accelerated.

In my work as a therapist and counselor, many of my clients are undergoing life transitions. I wanted to get a head start on the blog posts for the year 2026 with this introductory post. During the coming year, as time permits and as my own life transitions allow, I want to talk some more about transitions, navigating those transitions, and, as always, how to have the best life possible.

Life essentially is one transition after another. Each person undergoes transitions as they move from one age group to another. Some people move from house to house or even from family to family. It’s common to move from school to school. And in this process, we undergo a series of new relationships.

Life will also bring economic transitions. There are major life milestones like graduation from school, job and career changes, and achieving certain privileges, such as a driver’s license. Somewhere in the later years, a time we rarely want to think about until it’s forced upon us, sooner or later, most of us will lose abilities and those privileges we worked so hard to achieve.

I thought I would recap for you what I’ve learned about navigating life’s transitions, from my own experiences, the experiences of my clients, and the books and research I have read. Forgive me if this doesn’t progress smoothly and if I take some detours into areas of knowledge I think might be useful to others undergoing one of life’s transitions. Along the way, I would like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned, in the hope that they might be helpful to someone else who is moving along life’s journey.

If any of these topics are relevant to you or to someone in your life, I hope you’ll read these blog posts and share your comments.

Best wishes to everyone in the year 2026 and beyond.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC. 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller.

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel.

The perspective of age

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The perspective of age
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The perspective of age.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Things look different as you drive farther down life’s road.

When I’ve gone on long trips, I’ve noticed that the mountains off in the distance don’t seem that far away, but after driving for several hours, those mountains don’t appear to be getting any closer. It’s not until you get to the foothills and start climbing up and down, and up again, that you begin to experience going over those mountains for real. The journey of life is a lot like that trip. As you age, things will look differently.

Your perspective will change as you live life.

I remember being young and anxious to grow up. Getting some of the pleasures of adulthood seemed very attractive. I remember how important it was to me to get first, my learner’s permit and then my driver’s license. Now that I’m past 70, I must retake the driving test in person. I know the numbers are different in other states, but the principle is the same. Eventually, when you get old, you start to lose some things you have become accustomed to.

Moving from one grade to another seemed like such a huge accomplishment. Leaving elementary school for middle school was a giant step. Leaving middle school for high school opened up new horizons. Then came college and graduate school.

When I was young, there was so much to do.

When I finally graduated from high school, the road suddenly took a sharp turn. I hadn’t seen all of the obstacles that would loom ahead of me in life while I rode along on the educational train. Suddenly, I face the challenge of finding a job or going to college. I have embraced lifelong learning, having gone to school for more than 70 years, both as a student and as faculty. Some semesters, I’ve been both taking a class and teaching one. I do a little bit of life coaching in addition to my counseling and therapy work, and I find coaching a lot like teaching a class only to one student at a time.

Only one of my four grandparents had graduated from high school. I don’t believe I had known anyone other than my teachers who had been to college. My conversations about going to college consisted of about fifteen minutes with a high school counselor who wanted to know what college I planned to attend.

With no real plan other than a love of learning, I enrolled at the community college more to avoid giving up going to school than because I understood what college would involve or how having a degree might affect the rest of my life.

Along the road of life, the scenery changed.

First, I got married. Then I went looking for a job. The next thing I knew, I was a father working to support my wife and child. Along that road, there were twists and turns. I got old enough to drink alcohol. Being twenty-one meant I was an adult.

Eventually, I discovered that being an adult meant watching my child grow up, get married, and see my grandchild be born. I also discovered that being an adult meant realizing my drinking was causing me problems and required me to break up with my long-term friend, Ethel, ethyl alcohol.

Growing old is not synonymous with growing up.

Growing old largely depends on the number of trips you make around the sun. Each year, the Earth makes one long rotation around that sun. I think that after a certain number of trips, you start to get dizzy, and it feels like each succeeding trip is moving more rapidly.

Looking back on my life, I realize the tremendous number of things I have had to learn and an even larger number of things I could have learned but haven’t mastered yet. The growing old part is relatively easy. The growing up part, that is hard. Despite being past retirement age, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

The body becomes high mileage as you age.

I like to think of my body as a vintage car. All the parts are still there, and they work most of the time, but they don’t always work as well as they used to, and sometimes, more than one part is giving me problems at the same time.

The longer you live, the more wear and tear there is on your body. I feel undeservedly lucky that despite my poor care of my body, I am in as good a shape as I am at this age. Eventually, the body begins to accumulate problems. Some people must face more medical challenges than others. Things that were only minor inconveniences can turn into major health challenges.

One thing you see from the perspective of age is that more and more of your life is behind you, and less is ahead. The biggest regrets for most people when they grow old are the things they always wanted to do but never found the time for. Try to live your life so that you have a minimum of regrets when you get to the end.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay counseling and therapy clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC. 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller.

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

2025 First-Foot.

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2025 First-Foot.

By David Joel Miller.

1st foot.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The first-foot through the door each year sets the tone for the rest of the year.

There’s an old tradition; they say it comes from Scotland, that the first person through the door each new year sets the tone for the rest of that year.  Because of that, I wanted this to be my first post for the new year.

If this is your first time reading counselorssoapbox.com, I hope this post will start off your year in a good direction.  Longtime readers will know that this blog’s premise is having a happy life.

Life can have its struggles.  At some point in their life, everyone is likely to experience a mental, emotional, or behavioral issue.  Because of this, I write a lot about mental health, mental illness, substance use disorders, and overcoming the bumps on the road of life.  Here is hoping that this new year will bring happiness to you and yours.

Throughout this year on counselorssoapbox.com I plan to bring you tips about having a happy life, coping with emotional and mental issues, and the impact that using and abusing substances might have on your mental and emotional health.

We will also present posts to help you with being a success. However, you define that success.  With over 2000 posts on counselorssoapbox.com so far, you’ll find plenty of tips in the past posts with more to come this year.  You might even want to consider subscribing to counselorssoapbox.com.

Thanks for being my lucky first-foot this year.

P.S.  If it takes you a while to get around to reading this post I will understand.  Whenever you get to it, please drop me a line.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, Please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Navigating life’s transitions.

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Transitions.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Navigating life’s transitions.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Life is time headed in one direction, followed by a transition.

First, you are a child, then you become a teenager, and then, presumably, you become an adult. Some people move through these processes of change smoothly, and other people experience bumps and scrapes along the road. As you pass through life’s various rooms, you can only guess what lies ahead. It’s challenging to think about what comes next when you are busy where you are.

Transitions are hallways between one life room and another.

When I think about life’s transitions, the image I see is one of stepping out of a familiar room into a hallway, not knowing which direction you’re going. If you have spent a lot of time in one familiar situation, followed by transitioning to another place, relationship, or stage of life. It can be very challenging.

You can get lost transitioning from one situation to another.

When you’re not sure what the next stage of life will look like, you can spend a lot of time standing in the hallway looking around. Some people go down the hallway, opening doors and glancing inside, not sure which direction their life should go. Here are some of the major life transitions that may be difficult to navigate.

Leaving the family you grew up in.

Moving away from your parents and getting your own place, with or without a partner, may be something you look forward to, or it may be a traumatic loss. There was a time several hundred years ago when it would have been common for children to leave home between sixteen and eighteen to make their way in the world.

Now, with people living longer, the average thirty-year-old has moved out of their parent’s home “forever” at least three times by the age of thirty. Adolescence has been stretched from a brief period of a couple of years to several decades.

Some people get out on their own right away, and others must experiment before they find their way in life. Some people never do find that adult situation and end up living at their parent’s home until their parents die.

Starting and ending relationships.

In your teens, most people begin dating. You have to explore your sexuality and who you’re attracted to. Sometimes, that first love stays with you, living in your memory for the rest of your life. People get together, and they break up.

Children may enter your life whether you’re in a relationship or not. It’s a huge transition, going from a single person to someone responsible for caring for a younger human. Shifting your focus from your own wants and needs to your children’s needs is challenging. If you haven’t yet established a career and are low-income, the transition to being a parent can be even more difficult.

Finding a job or selecting a career.

Your first job might be the result of a referral from a friend or family. Maybe will answer an ad in the newspaper or spend a long time applying. Some people’s lives get stuck in neutral when they can’t find that first job. Other people settle for what they can get and stay in that type of work for the rest of their lives.

Changing jobs.

People leave jobs for a variety of reasons. If it was a summer job and you are returning to school, it is a happy occasion. You might decide to quit that job, or you might be fired. Companies lay people off, downsize, and sometimes go out of business and close altogether.

You may decide that the job or the career field you’re in is not the right one for you. Many people go to school thinking that it will put them into a better paying job or at least help them find one. The connection between education and employment is a complicated subject. That topic could fill an entire book. When I do career counseling, the connection between education and jobs is something I explore with clients in detail.

Experiencing losses.

Along the road of life, you will gain things, and you will lose things. People enter your life, and they leave again. You’ll make friends and often drift apart; sometimes, you will reconnect, and sometimes you won’t.

People in your life will exit it forever.

Experiencing the death of people close to you is a part of the flow of life. When you lose older relatives, it seems expected. When you lose people who are your own age or younger, it is usually a surprise. It’s extremely hard to lose someone younger than you. Even when a celebrity we don’t know well suddenly dies, it impacts all of us.

You will gain things, and you will lose them.

Things come and go in your life. A new house can be a dream. Losing that house in foreclosure is a nightmare. You buy cars, and eventually, they get old and break down. When you get to the end of your life’s journey, you will have forgotten many of the things you acquired and may have a lot left that you can’t remember why you wanted them in the first place.

Approaching the end of your own life.

Most of our attention is focused on the young, the new, and the things that are growing. As you move through life, you will encounter grief and grieving. Some of your dreams will die. You will lose jobs and relationships, and along the way, you will lose people. Eventually, you will have to face the loss of your own life.

How do you cope with all of these life transitions?

While transitions in life are inevitable, how we each cope with those transitions is a very individual thing. Your religious and spiritual beliefs and values should illuminate your journey through life. If you have a philosophy, it should illuminate your journey. People who have something that gives their life meaning and purpose have a roadmap to follow.

How are you handling your life transitions?

I’d love to hear from some of you readers who have gone through major life transitions, both the joyful and the painful types. Feel free to leave a comment.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

2024 First-Foot.

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2024 First-Foot.

By David Joel Miller.

1st foot.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The first-foot through the door each year sets the tone for the rest of the year.

There’s an old tradition; they say it comes from Scotland, that the first person through the door each new year sets the tone for the rest of that year.  Because of that, I wanted this to be my first post for the new year.

If this is your first time reading counselorssoapbox.com, I hope this post will start off your year in a good direction.  Longtime readers will know that this blog’s premise is having a happy life.

Life can have its struggles.  At some point in their life, everyone is likely to experience a mental, emotional, or behavioral issue.  Because of this, I write a lot about mental health, mental illness, substance use disorders, and overcoming the bumps on the road of life.  Here is hoping that this new year will bring happiness to you and yours.

Throughout this year on counselorssoapbox.com I plan to bring you tips about having a happy life, coping with emotional and mental issues, and the impact that using and abusing substances might have on your mental and emotional health.

We will also present posts to help you with being a success. However, you define that success.  With over 2000 posts on counselorssoapbox.com so far, you’ll find plenty of tips in the past posts with more to come this year.  You might even want to consider subscribing to counselorssoapbox.com.

Thanks for being my lucky first-foot this year.

P.S.  If it takes you a while to get around to reading this post I will understand.  Whenever you get to it, please drop me a line.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, Please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Understanding Substance Use Disorders – The Basics

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This video provides a brief overview of diagnosing and treating substance use disorders. It was originally created for a training I conducted for mental health trainees and interns.

The Future of Counseling

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Counseling Questions

The future of counseling, therapy, and coaching.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

The Future of Counseling

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

The fields of counseling, therapy, and coaching are changing.

I had already seen some changes in the field starting to happen even before Covid. But because of the emergence of the new virus and the measures we had to take to cope with that virus, not only the field of counseling but society, in general, has undergone some significant changes. Reminds me of some of the other changes I’ve seen in my lifetime. People may bemoan the loss of a simpler life, but once you’ve installed running water and electricity in your home, there’s no going back.

Most of what I am talking about here applies primarily to mental health counseling and therapy. But some of the changes are starting to spill over both from and into substance abuse counseling and life coaching. Some of what I am observing may simply be the result of where I practice and the clients I see. But what I hear from other practitioners seems to convince me that the changes I’m seeing are spreading throughout the country and the fields of counseling and therapy.

Some of these changes started even before Covid.

There’s a common conception that therapy, the talking cure, was primarily designed for upper- and middle-class white people. However, many people of color or those of lower socioeconomic status have experienced counseling as something done to them rather than with them.

Recently, I have noticed an increase in clients who reported they were skeptical of counseling until a family member or friend talked them into it. Their previous experience with therapy had often been mandated and unpleasant. If you are forced to go for therapy with a school counselor who tried to convince you to change your behavior because you had gotten into trouble, it’s hard to look on counselors in the future as your ally.

There’s an increasing diversity among counselors.

When I went through the graduate program, it was unusual to have more than one or two male students in the class. Traditionally the helping profession was largely the province of social workers, who tended to be primarily female. Even among marriage and family therapists, it always seemed to me that the preponderance of the practitioners were female. However, the number of male counselors entering the field has recently noticed an increase.

Clients are becoming more diverse also.

During the last few years, starting even before Covid, I’ve noticed an increase in client diversity. It appears to me that there are a lot more African American clients coming to voluntary counseling. I’m also seeing a slight increase in the acceptance of counseling and therapy by people of Asian ancestry. As with all other innovations, it appears that the younger the person, the more likely they are to accept new alternatives.

Distance or remote counseling is here to stay.

When I first went to graduate school, the idea of doing counseling in any other way than a forty-five-minute session in an office would have been looked at as downright unethical. There were always a few radical therapists who might do “in vivo” sessions. They might take a client for a bus or train ride to help them overcome their anxiety. But in general, all sessions had to be done in the office.

At the beginning of Covid, I encountered a lot of clients who wanted to make appointments but only if they could have in-person sessions. As a result, many therapists were reluctant to try to conduct sessions by any means other than in person. But across the last three years, the acceptance of using technology as an alternative to in-person sessions has grown.

The use of distance counseling is now so common that beginning in 2023; counselors will need to take a continuing education class focused on the laws and ethics of distance counseling.

The business of therapy has changed.

How therapy is conducted, who conducts it, and how it’s paid for have all been changing. The things we call counseling, therapy, and coaching have diverse roots. Medicine, psychology, social work, systems theory, and self-help groups all contributed to this confusing thing we now call counseling and therapy.

Who does the work of talking with people, and what qualifications they need have been changing at an ever-increasing rate? Here in California, where I work and practice, marriage, and family therapists were first licensed in 1963. Before that, social workers were the only one of the three “sister professions” working in this state. The situation in other states has progressed in various orders.

Most of what we now call counseling or therapy stems from medical doctors following in the tradition of Sigmund Freud of attempting to solve thinking, feeling, and behaving problems using a thing called “the talking cure.” Some of the ways this work is done today have also been informed by the field of psychology and self-help groups, notably Alcoholics Anonymous.

The traditional model was one professional working with one client in a small treatment room, typically hidden from everyone else in an effort to maintain that thing we call confidentiality. However, recently that model has been seriously disrupted as insurance companies have funded treatment, group counseling and self-help groups have become more common, and technology has offered options to the one patient, one treatment provider pattern.

In an upcoming post, I want to talk more about how the business of counseling has changed and how I expect to see it continue to change in the future. Thanks for reading my writing, and here is wishing you a happy life full of meaning and purpose.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

2021 First-Foot.

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2018 First-Foot.

By David Joel Miller.

1st foot.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The first-foot through the door each year sets the tone for the rest of the year.

There’s an old tradition; they say it comes from Scotland, that the first person through the door each new year sets the tone for the rest of that year.  Because of that, I wanted this to be my first post for the new year.

If this is your first time reading counselorssoapbox.com, I hope this post will start off your year in a good direction.  Longtime readers will know that this blog’s premise is having a happy life.

Life can have its struggles.  At some point in their life, everyone is likely to experience a mental, emotional, or behavioral issue.  Because of this, I write a lot about mental health, mental illness, substance use disorders, and overcoming the bumps on the road of life.  Here is hoping that this new year will bring happiness to you and yours.

Throughout this year on counselorssoapbox.com I plan to bring you tips about having a happy life, coping with emotional and mental issues, and the impact that using and abusing substances might have on your mental and emotional health.

We will also present posts to help you with being a success. However, you define that success.  With over 1800 posts on counselorssoapbox.com so far, you’ll find plenty of tips in the past posts with more to come this year.  You might even want to consider subscribing to counselorssoapbox.com.

Thanks for being my lucky first-foot this year.

P.S.  If it takes you a while to get around to reading this post I will understand.  Whenever you get to it, please drop me a line.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seems like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and they want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

The Differences between Coaching, Mental Health Counseling, and Therapy

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Counseling and therapy

Therapy, Counseling, or Coaching?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The Differences between Coaching, Mental Health Counseling, and Therapy.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

There are some significant differences between coaching, counseling, and therapy.

Therapists, along with clinical psychologists and social workers, all need to be licensed and can diagnose mental illnesses. As a result, they can bill insurance when someone has a diagnosable mental or emotional illness. Mental health counselors, or clinical counselors, as they are called in California, fall into this category. There are other types of counselors who may or may not be licensed but who do not diagnose or treat mental illness.

Coaches can have virtually any training or function. There’s a world of difference between coaching an athletic team, coaching a business executive to be more productive, or coaching someone through the process of discovering life’s meaning and purpose. While there are programs for training and credentialing some types of coaches, anyone who wants to describe themselves as a life or self-improvement coach can do so.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am licensed in California as a Marriage and Family Therapist and as a Professional Clinical Counselor. I’ve also completed a training to become a certified life coach.

Most mental illnesses are defined by their symptoms.

The process of diagnosing most mental illnesses involves counting up the number of mental, emotional, or behavioral symptoms the client experiences. There are a few exceptions, but generally, there is no requirement to discover the cause of the illness. Depression, for example, can be endogenous within the person and have no specific cause, or it can be reactive depression in which some particular life circumstance or problem has affected the client excessively.

For a group of symptoms to be defined as a mental illness, it must impair occupational functioning, social functioning, cause subjective distress, or impair another important area of functioning. Deciding if something is an impairment may be the judgment of the treating professional, or it may be because the client defines it as an impairment.

Problems of living aren’t always mental illnesses.

Towards the back of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM-5–TR) or a list of problems that may be affecting someone’s mental health but which are not specifically considered a mental illness. These can include such things as low income, failed school examinations, other housing problem, phase of life problem, problem related to living alone, parent-child relational problems, partner relational problems, and so on. Some people struggle with these problems without developing the symptoms of a serious mental illness, while other people may become severely depressed, anxious, or develop some other mental illness.

Some problems are treated by both therapists and coaches.

Many of these problems of living may be covered by a company’s employee assistance program. People with these issues are referred to licensed practitioners. Marriage and family therapists frequently work with couples or families. There are also frequent “couples relationship boot camps” or marriage encounter seminars conducted by coaches or even volunteers.

Therapists and coaches both use interventions.

Therapists, in their training, develop a theoretical orientation which tells them what they think caused the problem and, therefore, how they should go about correcting it. The corrective part involves using interventions.

A therapist might work on self-esteem issues to help the client with severe major depressive disorder. The coach might work on those very same self-esteem issues to help someone become more assertive at work or better able to conduct work-related trainings or seminars.

Two people might both have low-paid jobs and wish they had better career prospects. One might become seriously depressed and unable to get out of bed to go to work because of their working conditions. As a result, they have developed major depressive disorder.

The other might seek help from a coach to develop a career search strategy to take them to a better-paying job. There is a specialty among mental health counselors called “career counseling,” but many life coaches also spend time focused on developing a plan to help the client to land their ideal job.

The difference is not the intervention but the problem being addressed.

Treatment of mental illness doesn’t mean you will have a happy, productive life.

Mental health professionals often treat a client until the symptoms of depression or anxiety a reduced to the point that they no longer interfere with the client’s jobs, friendships, or keep the client from doing other things they would like to do. Once those symptoms are reduced and the client no longer meets the criteria for the illness, the treating therapist or mental health counselor can no longer bill medical insurance for treatment. There can be some benefits to continuing to work with the client even after symptoms disappear in order to build sufficient skills to prevent a relapse into depression or anxiety. Keeping a client out of the psychiatric hospital can be a legitimate goal of treatment even if the client no longer has enough symptoms to meet the full criterion for a particular mental illness.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Changes are picking up speed.

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Changes are picking up speed.

Changes are picking up speed.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

There have been a lot of changes over the last three years.

Over the last three years, my life has felt like someone took everything I knew and everything I do, put it in a box, and tossed it up in the air. I’m still waiting to see where all the pieces fall. I suspect you’re feeling a little unsettled, also.

Regardless of how you feel about things politically or how you were affected by Covid and society’s effort to adjust to a new virus, this experience has changed a lot of the things we do and has fundamentally changed some of us.

We can’t go back to the past.

No matter how much you miss the “good old days,” once things change, we can’t put them back the way they used to be. Trying to cling to the past can rip your arm right out of the socket. I know many “old people” miss the good old days. I know that’s not a politically correct term, but I think I get to say that because I’m one of those “old people.” I can see my seventy-fifth birthday approaching with the speed of a flying bullet. While I can keep up with some of the young folks these days, my philosophy tells me the best way to stay ahead of the Grim Reaper is to keep moving forward.

I’m not sure the good old days were all that good.

A lot of people are talking about the good old days, by which they mean four years ago before Covid happened. I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t have to deal with all this modern technology and its constant change. But then I remember using an outhouse instead of the bathroom and having television for only an hour or two in the evening if the weather was good. I also remember when getting polio meant paralysis or maybe the rest of your life in an iron lung.

You have to take the bad with the good.

Some days my cell phone can be a downright annoyance. People call me all day long. And there are those text messages, along with a trillion notifications about new emails. It can be frustrating. But I remember breaking down along the freeway and having to walk for several miles to find a phone. I sure like having a communicator device in my pocket when there’s an emergency. I just wish the technology people would stop changing things just for the sake of change.

Which direction is all this change going?

Predicting the future is never certain. I have a crystal ball, several of them, as a matter of fact. They look pretty, sitting on the shelf. But all of mine are far too cloudy to see much of anything, especially when it comes to the future. Still, I have some thoughts about what’s going to happen in the future. I’m going to briefly outline the changes I expect us to grapple with, but it’s also my intention to write some additional blog posts about these changes in more detail. My to-do list has been growing far faster than my ability to do.

The way we interact with other people will continue to change.

Across my lifespan, I have gone from a home with only one crank phone on the kitchen wall to a world where preschool kids are carrying around cell phones and tablets. The computer used to be a man in an office, down at the end of the hall, who added things up with a manual gear-driven adding machine. My first “modern” computer was one of those RadioShack TRS-80 model 2 with a whopping 64K of memory. Please don’t tell the technology police, but the desktop computer I’m using today, with its terabytes of external memory, may shortly be a candidate for a museum.

Does anyone besides me remember when you had to wait a week or maybe two for a letter to go from the Midwest to California? My mother would wait for a letter from my grandmother and then write a reply. We then had to take it to the post office and pay extra to have it sent “airmail.” Today people in other countries all over the world can call you instantly. Unfortunately, the scam artists and the telemarketers can also call you at virtually any time of the day or night. The ease of communication comes with its challenges.

The world of work is changing.

The term “remote work” meant something totally different only a few short years ago. For example, remote work might have involved a news reporter or correspondent sending in his dispatches from another country. If the company wanted you to work remotely, they put you on a boat or, more recently, an airplane and sent you there. Because of Covid, many people are working remotely either by computer and email or virtual communication.

A warning here to “Zoom.” You’ve done such a good job of allowing people to do simultaneous video and audio communication you’re in danger of the name of your company becoming a generic term for any video and audio conferencing platform. But then Coke had that problem when everyone wanted to refer to all soft drinks as a Coke. And I think most people still refer to all tissues as “Kleenex.”

The impact of Covid on the world work has not ended.

I think we’re in for some struggles ahead. Some companies and people are embracing remote work. Some worksites are marching to the flag of “everyone needs to get back in the office.” The issue of remote work is likely to reshape not just the way we work but the kind of work we do.

I see the same thing going on in education. I teach at a couple of different colleges and had to go through the frantic move to online education and now the move back. Some students and, more importantly, some schools, do better when education is delivered in the classroom. But some students do better when they learn online and online schools are flourishing.

There’s also the question of whether remote work and learning impair people’s social skills or do they require us to develop a whole new set of social skills.

We need to address the problem of burnout.

When the concept of burnout was first explored it was related to social work and was called “compassion fatigue.” We now know that it happens in a lot of other professions. If it’s caught in the early stages, burnout can be treatable. But most of the time, people simply soldier on until they can’t. I think we will see a loss of talent in several fields due to burnout from the stresses people experienced during Covid.

Creativity is changing.

The rapidly accelerating progress of technology is also impacting how we do many creative things. For example, video production and graphic design can be done far more easily from the kitchen table than they used to be done at commercial enterprises. The increase in e-books has opened the field of writing and publishing in ways we don’t yet even fully understand. And, of course, the chance to express your opinions by writing a blog, creating a podcast, or making a video is far more common than ever.

More to come.

Having said all this, I just wanted to let you know there will be more posts on these topics.

Also, I decided to separate my blog posts about mental health and having a happy life from the posts about my creative endeavors, including writing and making videos. You’ll see the links to my new writer blog (davidjoelmillerwriter.com) and my YouTube channel below. I am making all these changes in preparation for the rapidly approaching new year.

Best wishes, and please be happy and healthy.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel