Category Archives: Counseling and Therapy

Do therapists tell parents what kids say?

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By David Joel Miller.

How much confidentiality should children get?

Do therapists tell parents what kids say?
Photo courtesy of pixabay

This can be a very touchy issue. Nothing more infuriates a parent than the sense of loss of control over their child’s care. Parents routinely want to know all about what their child is talking about in therapy. Children often ask “Do you have to tell my parents,” before they will disclose something. There are no simple answers.

Two primary questions here.

1. How much should the parents be told?

2. How much are they legally entitled to know?

There are good reasons why parents need to know what is going on with their children. There are also some equally good reasons why they should not be told. Let me try to explain both.

Consider this a general answer and deliberately vague, lots of factors play into this situation and these vary widely from location to location. So the legal practice in one state may not apply in another. From the therapist’s point of view, there are something’s the parents need to know and other things that will interfere with the process if the therapist tells them.

The exact legal requirements are another issue that varies with the jurisdiction.

The parent, therapist, and the child may also discuss ahead of time just what things will be told to the parent and what should be kept confidential.

Some parents want to know everything the child says. They want the counselor to pry those secrets out of their child. They ask us things like “Is he doing drugs?” “Is she having sex?” The great illusion of some parents is that if they knew all their children’s secrets they could better control the child’s behavior and “Keep them from making mistakes or doing something wrong.”

Let me give you a real-life example of a parent’s effort to control their child’s behavior and how it backfired. This particular example is based on a news story, not my clinical practice so parents, if I have seen your child, relax this is not your kid. I have imagined a few things that were likely to happen after the news account left off.

Dad was worried about his daughter staying out late and was suspicious she was having sex with one of the boys from her school. Dad wants to put a stop to this behavior. He gets an adult this girl trust to talk with her. Have that sex talk. She reveals that yes after going to a local hangout she and this boy did go off and have sex. The girl is 17 the boy is 18. So this sex, in my state, would have been illegal as statutory rape but not reportable by the counselor as child sexual abuse.

Dad is told. He becomes enraged. Dad pressures the police and the local D. A. to arrest this older boyfriend for statutory rape. Dad also files a lawsuit against the hangout where the two of them met for endangering the morals of children. Let’s not worry about the merits of a suit like this just now. The boy is in jail, the hangout is fighting to stay in business and now checks all the kid’s ID’s and no longer allows anyone under 18 to enter. Everyone in this small town knows who had the sex that caused the problems for all of the other teens.

The result?

This Girl, now furious with her father, sneaks out her window, goes to another spot, and hooks up with a couple of older guys. She is going to get even with dad. She is now having sex with lots of older guys, not just the one cute potential boyfriend who is away in jail.

A better approach would have been to talk with the girl about love, relationships, and the dangers of unprotected sex.

Parents make the mistake of thinking that they need to control children’s behavior to keep them safe. So very often that “protected” child turns 18 and now all bets are off.

Parents, at some point in your child’s life, probably in the teen years, your role should move from protecting your child to teaching them how to make good choices. That learning to make choices part scares most parents. What if they make a mistake?

Parents fear this because frequently those parents have made all those mistakes themselves.

We all need to live our lives, learn to make choices, for better or worse, and sometimes in the process, we fall down and get hurt.  A good parent can loosen their grip enough to let the child make some decisions and learn from them before they reach the point of having to face those huge, life-altering, decisions all alone.

Lots of teens ask me to not tell their parents things because they know they have messed up. Often the parents are very understanding and can help the teen solve the problem. Embarrassment and the keeping of secrets are not helpful to the teen.

Some reasons parents should not be told what their child says.

If there is a danger the parent will overreact, or harm the child then the counselor may be ethically bound to keep things from the parent.

More than one parent was concerned about what the child was saying because the parent was engaged in illegal activity, used drugs, or had some other secret they wanted to hide.

If you are the parent whose child is in therapy, trust the therapist to tell you what needs to be told, to report what legally has to be reported, and to try to help your child through the process of learning to make their own decisions.

If you are that teen in therapy, have this conversation with your counselor. Ask them what sorts of things they will be telling to your parents and what is confidential. Unless there is a safety issue involved it is generally best to let your parents know what problems you are dealing with and the counselor can help you with the process of telling them. Don’t let embarrassment keep you from getting help. We all make mistakes in life. The smart people know they need to fix those mistakes and sometimes that means asking for help.

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 seem 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 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

What’s the big deal if a therapist smokes a little dope? Ethical Loopholes Part 2

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

Cannabis

Marijuana’s effects. 
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What if your counselor does drugs when they are off work?

The series on “Ethical loopholes and why these can strangle you” started in a previous post (last Friday) when I talked about the dangers of counselors talking too much about their clients and then violating confidentiality, this is a violation of most codes of ethics and illegal in most places. I also said there are three other ethical problems for counselors that may be affecting their clients. Here is part two – Counselors who are impaired by drug or alcohol use.

Is it OK to be a casual drug user? Can you just chip a little? Even if someone has a drug problem, should that keep them from working a job?

I think this depends on what that job is and for counselors and therapists, this should be a no.

There are times when working with a client that I do not focus first and exclusively on getting that client to stop drug use. When working with a suicidally depressed client, this is not the time to talk stop smoking, or even about giving up weed.

That is the old approach and it did not work. We used to tell the mentally ill that they had to stop all drugs for 30 days before they could get mental health treatment. Clinicians did not want to diagnose clients until they had a period of sobriety. So they referred them to substance abuse treatment first. The substance abuse treatment provider then refused them saying they were too mentally ill for drug treatment until they got their mental health symptoms under control So the client got ping-ponged back and forth.

The new process is to treat both problems at once and to “meet the client where they are” so if they are not ready or do not want to quit we work on the things they do want to change. So far I am good with this. I believe that any clinician worth their salt substitute can do an adequate assessment on someone who is using, you may have to catch them at a lucid moment but it can be done.

So we help clients work on what they want to work on. But here is where there is a two-part ethical trap.

In being willing to work with clients who are still using we can cross the line into saying that their drug use is OK and that they are entitled to keep doing it. I think we let the client down when we do not at some point mention that their drug use may be causing some of their mental health symptoms and encourage them to stop.

This danger, that accepting their drug use and working with them as they are can turn into advocating for their right to continue to abuse substances.

I am not an advocate of trying to help an airline pilot control their recreational drug use or alcoholism and still keep flying.

The ethical problem for counselors.

Once you begin to advocate for your client’s right to keep getting high and working it is a short hop to thinking that it is OK for the therapist to use and get drunk as long as they do it on their own time.

At what point does this “harm reduction” philosophy move over into it is OK for the therapist to use?

Can you smoke the night before and sleep it off? What if you come to work and are high? What if you come to work and have a hangover?

It is my belief that counselors who started out advocating for the client’s right to keep using can cross the line into being impaired by drugs and alcohol on a regular basis.

Those therapists do not usually get caught because they come to work impaired. They can often hide that. But every time I get my professional magazine it seems like there are more listings for therapists, psychologists, and counselors who got arrested did something violent or delusion while under the influence.

Guess what? Licensing boards do not say “He was off work so the DUI does not count.” Impaired professionals get their licenses suspended or revoked.

Starting to make exceptions for when it is OK to keep on drinking and using includes the risk that the professional will pick up.

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen substance abuse counselor’s crash and burn when they picked up again.

Therapists seem to be able to hide it a lot longer but once they stick their head through that ethical loophole and think that it is OK to abuse substances occasionally when they are off work, then becoming an impaired professional is just around the corner.

Oh my, the word counter is blinking at me again. Seems I have gotten worked up and written more words about this ethical issue than I had planned.

In a future post the dangers of counselors and therapists making exceptions to the “dual relationship” principle.  Getting to be friends with clients and doing things other than therapy with them can hurt clients and therapists. We also need to talk about that sex with counselor thing but we have saved that for last. See you again next time.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

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 seem 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 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

4 Ethical Loopholes strangle therapists

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

Ethical loopholes strangle.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

4 Ethical Loopholes Strangle Therapists – Part 1.

Therapists who violate codes of ethics harm clients; they also may lose their licenses or ruin their carriers. Often these ethical breaches start with thinking that there might be sometimes when it is OK to make an exception to an ethical standard.

Not following ethical guidelines can harm clients. Making exceptions to ethical codes can be fatal flaws.

Therapists are taught codes of ethics in school. We take exams that include questions on laws and ethics or may even need to take a separate law and ethics exam. Every few years most of us have to take a refresher course in law and ethics. Still, people violate these guidelines. Why?

Somewhere down the line, some professionals start looking for loopholes, exceptions to those ethical requirements. When they do this, put their head through that ethical loophole, too often they can get strangled and lose their licenses or lose the trust of their clients.

Four ethical violations seem to create the most problems for clients and therapists. Most of these violations start with the professional think that while this rule is a good one there might be times when someone, not them of course, but another therapist, might do this and that would be OK. Once you have been able to picture a time when there might be an exception to this ethical rule it is likely that you will cross that boundary and try to put your head through that loophole.

Most therapists think immediately about the ethical standard that says no sex with clients. They know that if you think that might EVER be OK then you are at risk to do it. While this is huge for therapists, it may not be the ethical violation that harms the client the most.

Here are the Big 4 ethical violations in their order of harm to the client

1. Not keeping what clients say confidential.

When I get away from other professionals, out in the community this comes up more than I thought it would. Look at the list of top posts on this blog. Month after month people search for information about what is and is not kept confidential. Unfortunately, I also hear too many stories about how a therapist told that client’s story somewhere, someone recognized them from the story and this has hurt them when a family member, friend, or boss found out.

Knowing that the way counseling helps is because of the relationship and that strict confidentiality is fundamental to that confidentiality, how do so many professionals cross that line?

The first stretch through this loophole often happens innocently. Here is a HYPOTHETICAL example.

The therapist is somewhere and is asked about a particular mental health disorder. “Is there any treatment for Trichotillomania?”

“Sure there is, the therapist says. “I saw a client recently with Trichotillomania. She has suffered a trauma and began pulling out her hair uncontrollably, almost unconsciously. I treated her using treatment “X” and she got better.”

So far so good. But the therapist wants to sound great, impress this person, and get more referrals. He or she is thinking maybe I should become the authority on treating trichotillomania in this town. So they go on to tell more.

This was a tough case you know. Her family is very influential in this town. Her father is a prominent politician in this town and he did not want this getting out in his district or it might affect his reelection campaign. That district on the “X” side of town is awful conservative.

Is there a problem now? Sure there is. This is way too much information and has identified that client to anyone who thinks about this for over 5 seconds.

One little story – what harm?

But the next time the story gets more elaborate and before long this clinician is talking about their clients all over. They even decide to warn their church group about that sexual offender that has moved in on the same block as the church. What harm can there be in helping people keep their children safe?

The harm comes first because they have violated that client’s trust and eventually someone will find out and then it turns major. The harm may also include attacks on that client. Sometimes that registered sex offender, the one that the counselor warned people about, what he did was when he was 18 he had sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend and her parents pressed charges. This couple since has gotten married but he could still turn up on a list of sexual offenders.

If this therapist has a private practice and people find out about this they may just stop going to see them. But if the clients are low-income and have to go to a government-funded clinic they may not be allowed to change therapists. They may just stop coming and they will be counted, not as victims of the system but as treatment failures and drop-outs.

You would think a profession like counseling would police itself. Not usually. The complaint in this situation is most effective if it comes from the client. But then the client already afraid because of the harm done to them, that registered sex offender or Muslim may be getting death threats at this point, probably just wants to escape the system.

Other professionals may hesitate to report this. It is their word against the others. Whistleblowers can and do get punished. Also because this happened to a client there may be minimal ways that this can be reported by another counselor without violating this client’s confidentiality again. All of these are ethical and practical concerns.

Oh my! I am past 900 words and have only talked about one of four ways ethical boundary violations hurt clients.

One caution here – Ethical guidelines are just that “Guidelines” not hard and fast rules. So any professional, at any point, is in danger and may have a problem with something. What I am talking about here are the big problems and the professionals who repeatedly break these ethical principles.

In the future, I want to talk about other ethical problems also. My plan is to talk about one of these problems each Friday for the next three weeks. This post was mainly aimed at counselors and would-be counselors, but then I thought others might be interested in the ethical dilemmas we confront.

Here are ethical issues number two, three, and four.

2. Thinking that it is OK to party a little. If you just chip on the weekends how can that hurt clients?

3. Dual Relationships, hiring clients to work for you, getting them to loan you money or loaning them money, especially getting into investments together.

4. Falling in love and getting into sexual relationships with clients. We all want to believe in Snow White and Prince Charming but if a therapist falls in love with a client who came to him with a mental illness, this may turn out more like a sexual predator than a prince.

Let’s look at these three problems over the next three weeks.

Since we are over on words today I will skip the links to other stuff, you know where to find me. Check the categories to the right for more on other mental health and substance abuse issues.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

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 seem 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 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

Steps to become a Substance Abuse Counselor.

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

Counseling questions

Counseling questions.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How do you become a drug counselor?

What are the typical steps someone takes to become a substance abuse or Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) Counselor?

The profession of substance abuse counselor is in flux.  There is a large chance that this path will change in the future and it can be different in one jurisdiction than in another part of the country.

Substance Abuse Counselors follow a different path than Social Workers, Professional Clinical Counselors or Marriage, and Family Therapist largely because their profession stems from different roots. Substance Abuse Counselors have been recognized as a professional discipline relatively recently.

The professions involved in psychotherapy have a hundred-year head start on the newer profession of substance abuse counseling.

Psychotherapy stems from the medical profession. The founders are MD’s like Freud and Jung. Psychiatrists are trained as MD’s first and then trained in mental health second. Psychologists have Doctorate degrees (Ph.D. or PsyD) involving at least 8 years of college. Licensed Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists all have master’s degrees requiring, in most cases, 6 years of college education.

Social workers come from a slightly different origin. They began with “friendly visitors.” Their background is in welfare, social work, and providing aid and assistance. Most licensed social workers have master’s degrees (6 years of college) though some entry-level positions can be gotten with a 4-year degree. I expect that the term “social worker” in the future may be restricted to those with a degree in social work or possible to those with a master’s degree. Just working in a social work agency should not make you a “Social Worker.”

Substance Abuse Counselors come from a different world. Most substance abuse professionals have what we call “lived experiences” meaning they or someone close to them is in recovery. They have lived through the process of addiction and recovery and from first-hand experience, they know the difference between the disease of addiction and the life of recovery.

Most recovering people are suspicious of those counselors who learned about addiction or recovery from a textbook rather than from firsthand experience. We know of course that a doctor does not have to have personally had all the diseases he treats in order to be a superior physician. We wonder though why someone would choose to be a substance abuse counselor whose life has not been touched in some way by addiction, especially when we realize that substance abuse professionals often make less than their counterparts in other related fields.

Recently we have moved from, everyone who works in a recovery facility having lived experience only, to require that they also have some training in counseling, the disease of addiction, and the laws and regulations that involve counseling.

As more funding has been provided by the government for substance abuse treatment, society has asked, and rightfully so, what are the qualifications of those who do the counseling and what results are we getting for our money? The result of these questions has been to increase the qualifications needed to become a substance abuse professional.

Different jurisdictions have moved in different directions and things continue to change.

Some states or areas have instituted a form of licensing for substance abuse counselors. This has been resisted by longer established professions. The argument runs that it is confusing to the public when to be a psychotherapist or clinical counselor it requires 6 to 8 years of college, but the AOD counselor has a much lesser requirement. How comparable is a substance abuse counselor who has no education or only a few hours of training and should they get to use the term “licensed counselor?” Does the public understand that someone with a substance abuse counseling license has much less education than a licensed mental health counselor?

California so far has not seen fit to license substance abuse counselors. Here we have a system of registration and certification. The state does not so far register or certify AOD professionals. AOD counselors register with an organization and then complete supervised hours and an exam to become certified. How many hours of education and experience can vary dramatically from one registry to another.

Registered and certified counselors are not, at this point, allowed to set up private practices but must work for a licensed facility. Facilities are licensed by the state but this does not ensure any particular level of staff training other than a percentage of counselors must be registered or certified by some of the many registries that have gotten themselves listed with the state.

Under this system it is possible for a non-licensed person to open a facility and get that facility licensed, thereafter then can work as a registered person in their own facility. In fairness, it should be mentioned that most drug treatment facilities are operated by nonprofit companies.

Over time, of course, these regulations continue to increase the required skills and experience needed to become an AOD counselor.

So the path to becoming an AOD counselor requires, some level of knowledge and interest to begin with, usually by lived experience, some course of education which can vary anywhere from a weekend training to a 36 unit college certificate. And some number of hours of experience followed by a certification exam. In practice not all AOD counselors are equally trained.

If this is a profession you wish to pursue, I recommend that you check the most recent regulations in the jurisdiction in which you live. Consider also what the job prospects and pay scale is for this occupation in your area. And also look at how portable will your credential be if you chose to move. Some registrations or certifications are transferable and some are not.

Increasingly professionals in the substance abuse counseling field are continuing their education to the master’s level so that they are qualified to work not only with substance abuse disorders but in the area of mental health and co-occurring disorders.

Thanks to the readers who sent in this question. Best wishes on creating your happy life.

David Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

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 seem 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 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

What if your Therapist loses their cool?

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

Therapy

Therapy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What should you do if the therapist loses their cool with you in the session?

It was interesting to me that more than one search term included this idea of a counselor or therapist losing their composure with a client. Here are some basic thoughts.

Counselors like clients are people and sometimes they do things they later wish they hadn’t done. The way this gets handled depends on how far off the track the counselor has gotten.

Sometimes it’s the counselor that is inappropriate, sometimes it is the client.

If the counselor feels their buttons getting pushed, they are getting upset; this is most likely about the counselor. We, professionals, are all taught that in those situations we should get counseling for our issues, talk with our supervisor, or do other things to work on ourselves. What we should not do is take our problems out on the client. If we are unable to deal with our stuff and work with this client we owe it to the client to transfer them to someone who can.

Sometimes this thing that is upsetting us can be useful material for the counseling session. One way your therapist might handle this is to tell you that what you are doing or saying is getting them upset and then ask you “Do other people in your life also get upset when you do this?” This approach can be useful to the client to let them see how their behavior and statements are affecting others around them.

Talking about this issue is only useful before the counselor loses their cool.

If the counselor gets physical with the client and the client has not been physical first, that is not OK.  Counselors can be disciplined or even lose their licenses for acting inappropriately with clients. Yelling, cursing and other hurtful statements and behaviors are also not acceptable. These things are rare, or so I would like to believe, but yes they can happen.

Both parties in the relationship should always feel safe. If the counselor feels physically threatened then there needs to be some intervention to make them feel safe. Sometimes there is just a bad fit between the two people and the relationship needs to be changed.

The results of counseling are almost exclusively dependent on the relationship between the counselor and the client. Anything that damages this relationship harms the client’s progress. Counselors sometimes need to balance the need to maintain a helpful relationship with the need to tell the client the truth about how the things they say and do are affecting others.

Occasionally the counselor has done nothing wrong but the client does not like hearing what the counselor says and they become threatening or even physically violent.

Having an emotional or mental illness is no excuse for acting out and becoming physical with someone. If the client does that then the counselor may need to call the police and have that client arrested. We don’t like to do that, we use all our skills to de-escalate the situation and prevent the need for law enforcement, but sometimes it has to be done.

So if you have been in a situation with a professional who lost their cool with you, think carefully about was this about you or about them. If it was about you, while the behavior was not OK you can learn from it. If it was about them then it is probably time to change counselors.

If the prospect of changing providers is overwhelming take a look at a previous post here on counselorssoapbox.com where I talked about how to fire a counselor.

If this provider is not meeting your needs, is making you worse instead of better, you need to advocate for yourself and find someone who can help you.

Here is hoping that this helps those of you who feel that your clinician has lost their cool with you. If this has happened to you and you can share the event without harm to you consider telling the rest of us about your experience and how you have resolved this or are trying to resolve it.

Here is wishing you a speedy recovery and a happy life.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

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 seem 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 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

How do you fire a psychologist or counselor?

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14

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

Therapy

Therapy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is it hard to say goodbye to your therapist?

There are several reasons you should say goodbye to a counselor and a few reasons you shouldn’t  Let’s look at these reasons first and then the how second.

Times you should stop seeing the therapist

1. If you have made the progress you need to make.

In managed care, we draw up a treatment plan. The goal is not a complete elimination of the symptoms. That would keep even normal humans in treatment forever. The goal of treatment should be to reduce the symptoms to a manageable level and to teach the client to be able to manage those symptoms in the future.

If your symptoms are under control and you feel you have the tools to live life without staying in therapy, you may be ready to move on. Ending this episode of therapy does not mean that you will never return to therapy with this or another counselor. It means that right now you don’t have a need to keep going to therapy.

2. If you are making NO progress.

Ethically a counselor should stop seeing you and refer you to someone else if they can’t help you. Sometimes we counselors want so much to be helpful it is hard to see when we are not the one that can help this client.

You’re bringing up the idea of ending therapy may come as a relief for your counselor who has been trying to think of a good way to tell you that you need to see someone else. Therapists do not want to abandon clients in need and it is hard for them to stop trying.

Sometimes a self-help group, peer counseling, or a friend support system is what you need just now.

Reasons you shouldn’t stop seeing this counselor

1. It is getting painful or difficult to talk about your problems.

Quitting therapy when the work gets hard or painful is a sure way to stay in your problem. When the work gets hard it is tempting to blame the therapist and change. It takes time for the new counselor to get to know you and you can put off really facing the issue for a while. This makes moving from one therapist to another tempting. Eventually, that issue will come up again and the pain is back.

Running from problems has kept a lot of people sick. Sometimes we use drugs and alcohol or romantic encounters. Other times people just change counselors. Either way, evading your issues will not get you better.

2. There will be negative consequences if you stop.

If you were court-ordered or need to complete the sessions to get your license back then stopping is a really bad idea.

If you are facing consequences as a result of stopping, think carefully before you do so. This probably means there are things about yourself you do not want to face.

How do you stop therapy?

There are oh so many ways but a few are more recommended than others. Counseling is all about the relationship and if you have been together with this counselor for any length of time you should have a good enough relationship to talk with them about this.

Most counseling relationships do not go one forever. Eventually, there will be a “termination stage,” to your counseling that involves the counselor preparing you to stop coming. If you bring this up the counselor should be willing to talk about where you are in the process, what else they think you need to accomplish and how you two will go about ending the counseling relationship.

If you have given this a try and the relationship is not working you owe it to yourself to tell the counselor that. Sometimes that discussion will result in taking a new approach and you will begin to make the progress you need to make.

With an independent private practice counselor, this can be as simple as saying no to another appointment and calling around to make an appointment elsewhere. If you have insurance that is paying for the treatment you should talk with your insurance provider about who else can see you and be prepared to give some reason why you need this change.

If you go to a large agency they may have rules and procedures for therapist changes. You need to ask how you go about doing this. While you may need to talk with a supervisor or administration about your desire to change you should always think of this as advocating for yourself and for the care you need.

If you find this especially difficult look for a case manager or patients advocate that can help you with the process.

Making progress in counseling is about finding a provider that you can develop a good working relationship with and then about doing work. Here is wishing you the best on your process of recovery.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

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 seem 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 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

counselorssoapbox.com most read posts – March 2013

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Counselorssoapbox.com

counselorssoapbox.com most-read posts March 2013

By David Joel Miller.

Here are the most-read posts here at counselorssoapbox.com  for the month of March 2013.

How much should you tell a therapist? 

Is nicotine a stimulant or a depressant?

What is the difference between Depression and Major Depressive Disorder?

Do people really forget what happened when drinking? – Blackouts

Levels or types of Borderline Personality Disorder  

Which border is Borderline Intellectual Functioning on?    

Why can’t we forget the painful past?

Do therapists have to report a crime?

6 ways to recover from Complex Trauma or Complex PTSD   

Are you Hyperthymic?

Thanks to all of you who have read a post, become a follower, and especially an extra helping of thanks to those who have left a like or comment.

Thanks again.

David Joel Miller

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 seem 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 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

What do you do if your therapist cancels?

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16

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

What do you do if your therapist cancels?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How should you respond to an unavailable professional?

One thing that counselors are supposed to avoid is “creating dependence” on the part of their clients. Our goal should not be to tell the client what to do but to help them learn what they need to learn to get through life. But many clients come to expect that they will get to see their therapist at a given time and place and they are likely to experience extra life difficulties when the counselor they are used to seeing is not available.

Some simple cases first.

The counselor is just not in the office today.

This problem is especially difficult for clients who have “trust issues.”
One thing counselors try to do is engage in a “corrective emotional experience.” You did not learn some things, emotional lessons, because the people you lived with did not teach you correctly or because when they did, you got the lesson wrong.

If when you needed a caregiver they were unavailable or abusive, you grew up insecure. Now to have your therapist do this to you is extra traumatic. Why does this happen and what should you do about it?

Begin by thinking about the counselor; this is probably about them not you. Counselors are real people and real people have lives. Unless you live with them, and then they should not be doing therapy on you, there will be times they will not be available. Your regular counselor may be on vacation, out sick, or may have had a family emergency.

This plays out differently in private practice than in a large agency. In private practice, the counselor does not get paid if they do not see clients. They have a lot of financial incentive to see you. They also do not routinely have co-workers who can cover for them when they are out. So they will make an extra effort to be there or to reschedule your appointment.

In an agency, you are the client of that agency not necessarily of that particular counselor. When one person is out sick then someone else should call you and reschedule or you may get assigned a new person to see you.

As much as administrators want high productivity, meaning keep everyone busy as much as they can, too many changes of provider are not good for a client. You see someone and then after telling them your secrets, they are out sick the next week. Do you really want to repeat your whole life story to a new person?

In an agency, people go on vacation, get transferred to a new department, move or change workplaces and sometimes they retire or die. The agency should arrange for you to see someone else.

In private practice, your therapist should make a plan for who you can talk to and who you will see if they are not available. If they are no longer available you can choose to find someone else.

What if you are in crisis?

Relying on seeing your counselor when you are in crisis is a bad idea. Most counselors either have a recording or an answering person who will tell you that if you are in a crisis situation you need to call your local emergency number first. In my area, this would be 911.

There may also be talk lines or crisis lines in your area. Sometimes there are peer support lines or “warm lines” that are very useful if this is not a full-fledged emergency.

In a crisis, the counselor can’t always be there and even if they were at some point this needs to move from their office to a place where you can be stabilized.

What if you have a problem, it is not a crisis but it is getting to you, you just need to talk?

Some therapists are able to take a few calls from clients when they are having difficulties. They can’t take every call, from every client, every day, or they become a phone counselor.

Consider if you can wait till the next appointment, does this conversation need to happen now? Also, consider if this is a crisis situation? Now if it is not a life and death situation and you have tried all the tools you have been taught to cope with this problem then this may be a time for using your “support system.”

One thing your counselor should be moving towards from the very first session is called termination. That is the point when you can manage your life, problems, and all, without needing to come to see a professional every week.

There are some people who do need lots of help; they may even need weekly sessions for a long time in order to keep them stable and out of a psychiatric hospital. But even then the provider should be trying to get that client to a place of needing professionals less and less.

The fastest way to take control of your recovery is to develop a personal support system.

That support system may be other recovering people or a support group meeting. For recovering alcoholics and addicts this may include a 12 step group meeting. It may also include family members, friends, or romantic partners. Sometimes this includes online support groups, which is fine as long as they are about recovery and not about other ways to keep your disease.

So at times, your provider is not available and you have determined that this is not an emergency, call or visit your support system.

Lastly, if your provider keeps canceling and rescheduling, consider whether you need to change providers. This is easier for people seeing private practice providers. They vote with their feet. If they don’t get what they need from the person they are seeing they make an appointment with someone else.

In an agency setting, you may need to talk this out with your counselor, their supervisor or request a transfer to a different clinician.

There is a lot more I could say on this subject but this is getting long so, for now, I need to close.

Here is hoping that this helped those of you who have been asking search engines about what to do if your counselor is not available.

Related articles

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 seem 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 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

Will the Counselor, therapist, psychologist keep your secret or tell?

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

Keeping your secrets?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Just how confidential is confidentiality.

Just what is confidential and what is not is a major concern to clients in mental health treatment. I have written several posts in the past on this subject but from the number of searches on this subject, we need to talk some more about this. Links to some of the past posts are at the end of this post.

Confidentiality and its cousin privilege, are legal as well as ethical concepts.  Laws can vary greatly from place to place. Check in the jurisdiction you live in and ask the person you are seeing if you have concerns about this.

We spend a lot of time on these issues in graduate school. We are supposed to explain this to clients when we first see them. Beginning counselors tend to spend a lot of time telling new clients more than most clients want to know. After a few years of doing therapy, the amount the client gets told declines and sometimes slips below the minimum the client needs. If your provider has said less than you need to know please ask.

Please remember I am talking about this from a counselor’s point of view, how we try to meet our legal and ethical responsibilities in practice. For the law in this, you should consult a lawyer.

Here are the general rules.

Everything you tell your therapist-counselor is confidential UNLESS it falls into a required or permitted exception.

1. Danger to self is reportable.

If you are eminently suicidal we can break confidentiality to keep the client alive. We are supposed to do this whether we want to or not. In practice, it is a judgment call whether the client has thoughts but does not intend to carry through or if they plan to kill themselves soon. Our response may vary depending on the circumstances.

2. Danger to others gets reported.

If you say you intend to kill someone in the future this gets reported. Past crimes are generally not reportable unless they fall under one of the other exceptions. Throwing a book at your sister is not a danger to others.

3. Child abuse, abuse of an elderly or disabled person needs reporting.

Generally, all abuse of a child gets reported if the provider has a reason to suspect the child is being abused. The counselor is not responsible for investigating, only to report to authorities. Someone who murdered a child would have committed child abuse and this past crime could be a mandated report in some places.

4. If the counselor needs to consult with another professional.

In this case, they tell the minimum they need to get the answers they need. They might talk to another professional about your treatment, to a lawyer about what is reportable, or to a billing person. They can “use” the information you give them to help in your treatment and their getting paid for providing it, but they are not supposed to “disclose” that information to people who do not need to know. Counselors sometimes call their lawyers to find out what they need to keep confidential and what they need to disclose.

5. If you are Gravely Disabled they need to report to get you help.

If the client can’t feed themselves or use clothing and shelter the counselor needs to call someone and get this person help.

6. You sue your counselor and they can talk about treating you.

If you sue your counselor for doing a bad job they get to introduce your records and prove what you said and why they did what they did.

7. If you introduce your mental status into a court proceeding they will be required to tell things.

Once you use your mental illness as a defense in court for something you are charged with all your mental health records may come out.

8. You are not the client and are not paying for the counseling.

If you are sent for a court-ordered examination, a child protective service interview or other assessment paid for by someone else you will probably be asked to sign a release of information so that the person paying for the services can see what happened.

No release and there will be no treatment. Once you sign that release the person who is paying or who ordered the assessment and or treatment gets reports. You can revoke this sometimes, but not all the time, and what has been disclosed cannot, of course, be taken back and remade confidential.

9. You are a collateral person in a session.

If you go with your partner or child and they are the person being treated you may not be getting any confidentiality on what you say. You should ask about this before you stay things and then want them kept secret.

10. A court subpoenas your records.

This gets problematic. The counselor or therapist will try to keep some things confidential by asserting privilege but that is up to the lawyers and the judge. If this is a worry to you talk to your lawyer before you see the counselor and see if there is a chance this will come up in court.

One last thought. There are some clients who come for therapy and talk extensively about how guilty they feel about past crimes and how they want to change. They don’t usually give all the details of the crimes. There are others who seem to want to brag about what great criminals they are and they don’t want to change. The ones who don’t want to change frequently say things that end up needing to be disclosed.

Facing the things you have done wrong and trying to change is a huge part of recovery.

Related articles

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 seem 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 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

Where have all the neurotics gone? – Looking for your neurosis?

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

Confused brain

Mental illness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do people still get treated for being neurotic?

On my bookshelves are a whole lot of older books on mental health and mental illness. Many of them talk about neurosis. A couple even has the word Neurotic or neuroses in the title. I mentioned “Be glad you are Neurotic,” by Bisch in a previous post. With all the literature on Neuroses, where have all the neurotics gone?

Neurosis was a pretty inclusive term. In the older psychological literature, you could get three diagnoses, Neurosis, psychosis and that group that seemed to move back and forth across the line got called “Borderline” because they appeared to live at the border between Psychosis and Neurosis.

Today our understanding of the possible mental illnesses is getting much more complicated. For example, one new piece of research from the University of Buffalo seems to suggest to me that over a hundred different genes may be causing schizophrenia because of their effect on one structure in the brain. Eventually, we may diagnose and or treat dozens or even hundreds of different types of psychoses.

The word Neurosis has leaked from psychiatry into the popular vocabulary. It like so many other words mean different things to different people.

Some dictionary definitions include “relating to, involving, affected by, or characteristic of a mild psychiatric disorder characterized by depression, anxiety, or hypochondria” and “overanxious, oversensitive, or obsessive about everyday things.”

So by this definition of neurosis, most of the things that today we break out into anxiety, mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a few other disorders would all be thrown into the category neuroses.

Neuroses have been completely dropped from modern psychiatric diagnosis, largely because neuroses were based on theories of what is going on inside the person like dreams and the unconscious. The current preference is to primarily use symptoms that are visible to others or can be described by the client, like lack of sleep, loss of pleasure, or similar characteristics as the basis of diagnosis.

This older term, neurosis, also included most of the currently recognized personality disorders.

One effect of this move from the simple classifications system, you either had a psychosis or a neurosis, has been that people with many symptoms now may get a number of diagnoses.

Neurosis used to include symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Now that the two are separated and further separated into many types of anxiety disorders and mood disorders, many people qualify for both a depressive diagnosis and an anxiety diagnosis. The overlap is so large that a combined depression and anxiety disorder was considered for the new DSM-5. (It did not become a separate diagnosis but there are specifiers for this.)

All the neurotics now get to have dozens or more of new diseases and disorders that are the result of refining our system of classification rather than in any real change in human behavior or the way in which mental illnesses affect people.

So you can go on feeling you are neurotic if you chose. You can say others are acting neurotic, but the diagnoses that the clinician will give you will have one of the newer disorder names.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

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 seem 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 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