What do you do when nothing is working? – Problem solving.

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

Problem-solving.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

When the old solutions do not work – then what?

How about you? When your best effort to solve your problem has not worked what things might you try?

It surprises many of us that there is a relatively simple, standardized process, for solving problems. This procedure is not a onetime find a solution but a continuous feedback loop that works for companies, governments, and dare I say, families and individuals.

1. Gather information about the problem first.

What exactly is the problem? Are there other ways of looking at this? If you define the problem as someone else’s behavior you are at an impasse. If you define the problem as your response to their behavior then lots more options open up to you

2. Whenever possible get outside expert advice.

Look for the person that might have the most information and the best insight into your problem. If it is a money problem consider advice from a financial adviser or tax person. For mental health problems or relationships consider at least one visit with a counselor or therapist to see how they might be able to help you.

For a family problem, try to get information and insight from other members of the family. This does not mean that you need to agree with them or do what they tell you, but it is beneficial if you can get their insight. Asking them and then really listening to their opinion is a long way from what most of us do, which is ask, and then argue with them. That old, Yes but, and No but, game will kill the value of any advice you might receive.

3. Generate a list of possible solutions to your problem.

Akin to brainstorming, the goal of this process is to get a list of all possible solutions. They do not have to be realistic solutions. The wilder the better. It is a lot easier to take a wild suggestion and tame it down then to take a timid suggestion and breathe life into it.

4. Evaluate that list of potential problem solutions.

Combine ideas where possible, modify the outlandish ones to make them practical, or find ways to make the more creative ones work. The ones that will not work do they suggest an alternative that might work?

Which potential solution has the best chance of success?

5. Implement this solution.

This requires a plan for implementing the solution. Who will do what when? How will we know if the solution has been implemented?

Give it a fair trial. Decide at the outset how long you will give this solution. How will you know if it is working? Just saying you will do it and then, “there, we did it” are not enough. How will you genuinely know if the things you did improved the situation?

Make sure you actually do the work required.

6. Plan from the beginning a time to evaluate your progress.

Has your efforts to change things made a difference? Has there been enough change to justify your efforts? Do we really think that if you keep on in this direction things will get better? Should you change and try idea number two?

7. Continue to modify the things you are doing based on the evaluation and improvement until you can see a significant improvement in the problem.

So a brief practical example of this approach. The family finds that they are behind on the bills, the credit card is maxed out and the cell phones and cable are about to be turned off. After a lot of arguing and yelling they decide to sit down and talk this over.

Some ideas are developed. They consider bankruptcy. Mom suggests she could get a job, dad could get a part-time job or they could try cutting the bills. The kids scream they will just die if they don’t have phones.

The decision, for now, is that they will make up a list of how much they are spending, on what and look for things they can change.

They talk to a bookkeeper and the helpful man at the credit union. They make up that list of bills and payments and see just what dad is making every week. On paper, it just does not add up. Bankruptcy will not work, it would cost some money and even after they file, dad will still not be making enough to pay all the current monthly bills.

Dad could get some overtime. Mom offers to look for a job. They try this solution.

A month later things are not much better. Dad has not been getting that much overtime. Mom has not found work and the cable and cell phones, they are now turned off. Additionally, mom has had to pay for babysitting for the little one so she can look for work.

The revised solution? One of the older ones will watch the little one, saving the baby’s sitting money. Mom will try an employment service at the college where she was taking a night class and dad offers to give up his Saturday golf game until they are back on track. The oldest asks that when mom gets a job could she have the first chance for a phone since she is doing the babysitting.

Each month as they go along they find the things they can’t pay for, well they are getting by without them so they can come off the budget. Mom begins to work and eventually things stabilize.

Here comes the critical part. They can now revert to their old pattern of spending more than they have until they get in trouble again or they can adopt some new habits and start paying that credit card debt off and having something left over. It will be interesting to see what they do.

Now I gave you an example of a financial problem but this problem-solving approach can be used for almost any problem including relational ones. It just needs some adjusting to make it work on some problems.

So have you used this method or something like it to solve problems? Care to share what worked and what didn’t?

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

Are you at the bottom of the hole? – Problem solving

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

Problem and problem solving

Problem-solving.

Sometimes problems look like there is just no solution.

Every one of us has to face problems in our lives. Some people’s problems are much larger than others. The people who do the best job of solving their problems are not those with the fewest problems, they are the ones who practice solving problems until they get good at it.

This reminds me of a story and as my colleagues will tell you I am fond of telling stories. There are a bunch of versions of this story and if you have heard one of those other versions, well be warned this is the definitive version or at least I would like to think so.

The Gold Rush played a dominant role in early California history. We still like telling and listening to those old stories. Life in those mining camps was hard and sometimes there were tragedies.

One day a group of miners was out away from camp working on their claims. These particular claims were strung out across the hillside. This one old miner was pretty well-liked by his fellow miners. Despite that Gold fever going around this miner still, would do a good turn for the other minors.

So one morning after the other miners was already at work, this old miner named Pete (Might have been Pedro, I can’t be sure).) Well, Pete comes walking along, with his mule Betsy behind him, bringing up his tools and a few things for the other minors. Some say the mule’s name was Bonita but we can’t tell about that either.

Well, Betsy slipped and slid down the hillside, ended up in a deep old open-pit mine shaft.  Pete commenced to hollering and the whole hillside full of miners came running.

For the best part of the morning, they tried everything they could think of to get that old mule out of that pit.  If you heard this one before just keep it to yourself.

By noon these miners had tried everything they could think of, ropes and lowering a man into the pit to try to help the mule climb up and all like that. Nothing had worked.

Pete decides to do the right thing and put his girl (Mule) Betsy out of her troubles. So he and the other miners decide to give Betsy a decent burial right where she was. Sometimes it pays to give up and just let it all go. They were thinking this was one of those times.

So they all went and got their shovels and started throwing dirt in the pit. It started to pile up around that old mule and then commenced to covering her back. This was in the days before the SPCA and stuff like that. Today you wouldn’t be allowed to bury a mule without a permit and an environmental impact study.

So old Betsy did not like that dirt on her back and commenced to shaking. The dirt flew everywhere and ended up under her. So the minors threw in some more dirt.

Burying a mule that keeps moving is a chore. Well, the long and the short of the story is that the more dirt they threw at her, the more old Betsy shook and the higher up in that pit she came. Before long the pit was full and Betsy, why she just stepped out onto the surface again, shook the last of the dirt off her back, and looked at Pete as if to say “What took you so long?”

The moral of the story, you knew one was coming, didn’t you? That moral is that sometimes when we are down in the bottom of the pit and they are trying to throw dirt on us we need to keep shaking it off and stepping up a little higher.

So if you have been feeling like you were so far down you would need to climb up just to find ground level this story may be for you. Keep on shaking it off and let’s see who is standing on top next time.

Sometimes we get to thinking like those minors, they couldn’t get that mule out of the pit and so they were gonna give up on her. But Betsy, she did what she needed to and got herself out by using that dirt to form a bridge to her future.

So if the way you have been going about trying to solve those problems and the solutions of those around you are feeling like so much dirt in the face, like old Betsy what other uses can you think of for that dirt?

Coming soon, a post about how to find solutions for your problems that involve using your mule sense.

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

Shrinking the world by studying a rock

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

Polish rocks

Polished stones.
Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

When problems seem insurmountable.

There is a technique that when used correctly helps to shrink things down to a proper size. Used inappropriately it can turn the smallest of issues into insurmountable obstacles. Let’s talk about this “Alice” skill.

Whatever you attend to you get more of.

One effective technique for shrinking things down is to increase our ability to concentrate. Pain, unhappiness, and the negatives of life come screaming into our awareness. The happy, peaceful, and contented items stand there, like a shy child, waiting for us to notice them.

Try this exercise. It will only take a couple of minutes and it may be worth many times that.

Look down at the floor or the ground. If you are confined to the indoors pick a spot on the floor, a speck of dust, or even a discarded piece of paper.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to be outside for this exercise look for pebble. Really look at this object. What color is it? Is it smooth or textured? What patterns are visible? How does this thing interact with its world? Does it lay flat or does it wobble?

As you sense your mind wandering off return it to this vital task at hand. Your goal is to learn all you can about what it would be like to be that pebble.

Keep racketing up your concentration on your pebble. The more you concentrate on that pebble the larger it grows in your consciousness and the more the rest of the universe will recede. All of existence becomes concentrated in that one stone.

People who practice this pebble meditation find that their abilities to concentrate at will grow. The result is that distractions shrink and become irrelevant. The background noise fades away and so do our other perceptions.

So what benefits does this pebble meditation bestow besides a chance to practice our concentration?

People in chronic pain clinics who learn to concentrate on an object report that while their mind is on the pebble the experience of their pain shrinks.

If you spend all of your time focused on your pain, you will find the pain grows. Their question becomes “How is my back feeling now? Not what else exists besides my back pain?

The objects of our attention play a role in our recovery from emotional as well as physical pain.

The wood spurge leaf of three, the squirrel running across the path, and the pebble at our feet have all played a role in alleviating suffering.

The risk? If you start caring enough about that pebble you may find a strong temptation to pick him up and take him home. If you pay attention to another person, you risk caring enough about them to let them into your life.

What would you like to shrink out of your life by discontinuing paying it attention? What will you grow in your life by making it the center of your attention?

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

If your house is leaning check the blueprint – life plans

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

No Roof.

No Roof.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Things we know, that aren’t so, keep life from being happy.

Can you imagine someone building a house with faulty blueprints?

Leave out a couple of braces, a support or two, and cut some boards a little short, and – Wallah – a house that leans precipitously, ready to fall over. There have been a couple of notable cases of this in buildings built by government agencies but that is another topic.

Imagine building your life using a faulty set of blueprints.

This is precisely what a great many clients who come for therapy are trying to do. They keep doing the same thing over and over using a life plan, a set of mental blueprints for living, that the copied down in childhood but there are some mistakes in those plans.

One clinician observed that those life problems that cause us the most difficulty are the things that we learned between five and fifteen that turn out to not be true. The age range may vary but the principle is the same.

Some examples of defective life blueprints may help.

You grew up in a home where alcohol or drugs were readily abused. You grew up thinking that everyone drinks and drugs a lot and this is normal. You may also think that the cops are out to get you because they show up on a regular basis every time you and your family members fight.

This is not normal behavior. Did you know that half of the adults in the United States who are old enough to drink have not had a drink in the last thirty days?  Turns out that the twenty percent heaviest drinkers, they drink eighty percent of the alcohol consumed in America.  Not everyone who drinks at home gets violent either, but the people who do get violent seem to drink and drug a lot more than the people who don’t.

So if you formed a plan for life that includes getting drunk and fighting with people who don’t do what you want them to do, this plan may not work well for anything but sending you to jails and institutions or worse.

Other errors you may have made in transcribing your life blueprints besides drugs and alcohol.

You may have been taught and therefore learned that people with emotional problems, they are crazy and so you need to try really hard to pretend you don’t have any emotional problems because if you admit you have them you will fall apart and go crazy.

This turns out to be very untrue. In the course of their lifetime, half of all Americans will have an emotional problem that becomes so severe they need to get help. My suspicion is that this is true in other places on earth also. Those who recognize they have a life problem and get help early; they have a better chance of getting over this problem quickly.

Everyone who sees a counselor is not crazy. Crazy people pretend they don’t have any problems even when those problems have overwhelmed them.  Much of what we do in counseling is helps people find solutions to normal life problems that are right for them.

We may have “learned” that to be wealthy you need to have been born into money, have a stroke of luck like winning the lottery or come up with some new technological innovation like invent the next e-pet. Turns out that there are people in America who are wealthy and do not realize it. There are also a lot of other paths to wealth that people don’t know exist.

Later in the year, I plan to post a series of pieces about financial issues and how a large amount of what we may have learned and are trying to do may be the result of really defective blueprints.

Some people have a blueprint in their head that tells them they are defective, worthless, or stupid.  If you were told a lot of negative things about yourself as a child you may have internalized thoughts about how you are less than others. Turns out there are a whole lot of very bright people out there who never knew they were that smart. Since others put them down, they have never tried to do the things that they were meant to do.

There are plenty of other examples of this faulty blueprint phenomenon. These may have to do with religion, politics, or other values.  Anytime we swallow someone else’s beliefs whole without digesting them and getting a full understanding we are at risk to have gotten them wrong.

This year may be as a good a time as any to take another look at the blueprints in your head, the ones you learned as a child, and see if they are working or is your life house leaning over and about to collapse. If you find beliefs that are holding you back this may be a time to examine them and see if you may have learned things that are not true.

Some of the structures you have added on to your life house, they may be rooms from someone else’s structure that were never intended to fit into your life.

You can’t create a happy life with a set of blueprints that create misery.

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

Would you want to go on a trip with you?

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

Taking a trip.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How much do you really know about you?

Most of us can tell the world quite a lot about others in our lives. If you have a friend and I asked you about that friend you could tell me a whole lot. Why even an enemy, someone you could not stand, you could go on for a long time telling me all about their defects. But let me ask you about yourself and most people could not tell me much about them and what they did say would likely not be very accurate.

Start right now to get to know yourself the way you would come to know a very best friend.

You will spend more time with you than with anyone else you ever meet in your life. Everywhere you go, when you wake up the next morning you will be there. You need to start right now on becoming the world’s expert on you. You should strive to be your own best friend.

It is said that we teach others how to treat us. We need to begin by learning to treat ourselves better. Compassion like charity begins at home. Treat yourself kindly and you will encourage others to treat you better. Is there one thing that you could do today to get to know yourself better?

Learning what makes you happy goes a long way to becoming happier. Make a list of all the things that make you happy. Decide which of those things you want more of. Decide right now that you intend to be that best friend you need.

Some of us have been blessed with true genuine friends. But whether you have had the experience of a trustworthy friend or not you can determine here and now to become that best friend you need. Treat yourself well.

For many of us, empathy for others comes more easily than tender feelings for ourselves. Learn to honor and respect yourself, learn also to identify those things that cause you pain, and resolve to eliminate those causes from your life.

It is difficult for others to care any more about you than you care about yourself.

Learn to accept the defects in yourself in the same way you might accept defects in others. Believe that you are a worthwhile person, not because of some great accomplishment but just because you are a unique individual. You are special in your own way, just like every other person on planet earth is special in their own way.

Some people can’t stand to be alone. They have never become comfortable spending time by themselves. Learn to occupy yourself. Be happy being in your own company. You will be with yourself all your life, start by learning how to mindfully do things with and by yourself.

What is your favorite color? What activities make you happy? What things in your life have made you sad? Hear your own pain and tell yourself it is all right. Learn to give you comfort and reassurance.

What has been the best moment in your life? What was the worst? It may help you to take notes.

What makes you feel loved? Couples tell me they do not feel that their partner loves them but they have never considered what makes them feel loved. How do you show yourself self-love? Loving yourself does not make you vain, it makes you mentally healthy.

If you want your children and your partner to do things that make you feel loved, you need to demonstrate how this love should be displayed.

Often I find clients are unable to tell me anything good about themselves. They have been so concerned about sounding conceited they have been cruel to themselves.

Taking good care of yourself is not being selfish. Giving yourself credit for things well done does not make you conceited. Failure to recognize and give yourself credit for things well done is a form of false modesty and is detrimental to your self-esteem.

I ask them what would a friend say about you. What would they say was your best quality? What do they like about you? If you don’t know, ask that friend, and while you are at it share with them the things you like about them.

In parenting class, one exercise we have used is to have each client sit in the center of the circle and as we go around the circle have each person tell them one thing they really like about that client. People often hear positive comments from their peers that they have never heard before. We often think good things about our friends but fail to tell them.

Tell yourself what you value about you. If you can’t make a list right off then make that a project to work on this year. Find the true value inside you.

Learning to accept praise, thanks and congratulations is a part of beginning to see yourself realistically as a worthwhile person. Accept that you are someone who sometimes does well and sometimes makes mistakes but is always a person worth having as a friend.

What will you say about yourself? What you tell yourself about you will determine the kind of person you become.

Become the kind of friend you will want to spend your life with.

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

Why the therapist doesn’t care about your problems- unit of treatment

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

Counseling questions

Counseling questions.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Does it feel like the therapist only cares about the other person?

Sometimes you go for therapy, with a person you think of as “your therapist” only to find they don’t really want to talk about you or your problems. They are only interested in your family member’s problems. What is going on here?

One problem for therapists is defining the “unit of treatment.” A good therapist will try to explain this to you at the beginning, but sometimes they don’t, and sometimes in the crisis of the moment you don’t get the details. Let me explain a couple of situations where this may be occurring.

When one member of the family has been seeing a counselor and now they want the counselor to help them with their relationship with another family member. Let’s say the client is a twenty-something woman and she has conflicts with her mother.

Mom gets invited to the next session. Mom wants to talk about how difficult it is getting along with her daughter and how she had to raise the daughter all by herself and now mom’s depression has been interfering with her life. Mom would like more respect and caring from her daughter.

The therapist does not want to hear about mom’s history of problems with depression, her hard life, and all the times the daughter disrespected her mother. The therapist wants to talk about their last fight and how mom could better support her daughter by being more understanding of the daughter’s mental health problems. What has gone wrong here?

The therapist is the DAUGHTERS therapist.

The unit of treatment is the DAUGHTER. They are not going to spend time on mom’s problems. If mom needs therapy then she needs to get her own therapist.

In this situation, Mom is a guest in the daughter’s therapy session. This can sometimes be referred to as a collateral session. A collateral session is all about how the guest can help the identified patient. If you ever get this kind of invite you should ask some questions. Is this for both of you to work out problems or are you only there so that the other party can tell you why you hurt them and they are expected you to do something to help them?

As a guest, you do not get confidentiality. You are not the therapist’s client and if you disclose that time you did something wrong you may get reported even if this is not a mandated reportable situation. Also if the daughter has told the therapist about things she has done in the past to the mother, like steal her money and forge her signature, the therapist can’t break confidentiality and tell mom.

Another situation that causes a lot of confusion is when a person is being seen for individual therapy and then asks their partner to join this. Say the woman above now wants to do some sessions with her husband.

Is this a request to stop individual therapy and begin couples therapy? Or is this an effort to bring the partner in to learn how to be more supportive and helpful to the wife?

This is an awful situation for a lot of men. They have talked with me in individual sessions repeatedly about how they went to a session with the wife and felt bushwhacked. The therapist, sometimes with a very feminist point of view, spent the session telling the husband how it was his fault, that all women are oppressed by their husbands and he is to blame for their marital problems.

Now any good marriage therapist knows or should know, that taking sides is likely to make the conflict between the partner’s worse and is not going to help the relationship. We should always be neutral. But if you have spent months listening to a client tell you all the awful things their spouse does to them, it is very tempting to turn this into a “heart to heart talk” by creating a safe place for your client to tell their spouse off.

This kind of session usually ends up in a blowout argument and possible violence or an end to the relationship. Counselors who do this sort of work should warn their clients to come in separate cars because after beating up on one of the partners there is no way that person is likely to give in say it was all my fault and go home to do as told.

If you go to a session with your partner’s therapist and this is not to begin couples therapy, expect it to be ALL about them and not you. A few therapists can handle this well and help the couple or family work some things out, but just who is here for treatment should be clarified at the start of the session.

The last example I will give is the parent, usually mom, who takes the child for therapy. They expect the therapist to help them cope with raising this defiant, belligerent child. What happens is that the session becomes all about how mom can be a better more nurturing parent and what the developmental needs of the child are at this age. She is instructed to spend more time reading to her child, help him with his homework, and make sure to walk him to and from school to increase his sense of security. The sessions are all about the child.

Never mind that mom does not sleep nights because of the nightmares from the abusive violent relationship or that dad is away in prison for what he did to mom and child. Mom also wants help with how she as a single parent is supposed to work two jobs to support her kids and still do all this with the identified patient child. As much as she loves this child and knows he needs her attention she has three others who also need attention. What has gone wrong here?

The unit of treatment is the child, not the family.

Mom gets only the help that relates to her ability to help her son. Now sometimes the therapist will shift the focus and start helping mom. The risk then is that the therapist will side with mom and spend the sessions beating up on the child, telling him he is a bad person and that everything is his fault. A good therapist will balance all these needs and help the whole family but this is a difficult task.

There are a whole lot more issues around children in therapy we need to look at. Can they consent, do they get confidentiality, and if so how much? Can an 8-year-old really consent to treatment? Is telling him he is the bad child an institutionalized form of child abuse?  And do we sometimes abuse the parent to make the child feel better? This post is running long and I need to leave those issues for other posts.

My conclusion is that there are good therapists who do a great job and not so good therapists who don’t do a good job of juggling these issues. Any time more than one person walks into a consulting room there are conflicts about whom we are helping and how we should be with the others.

Have you ever been to a therapist who just didn’t seem to care about your problems?

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

Inventorying you baggage.

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

Baggage.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Are anger and pain all you got in there?

When people start on the project of inventorying their baggage they customarily find a whole lot of anger, pain and resentment, and a liberal serving of fears. If they find any happiness, joy, or contentment it doesn’t seem to take up much space and is easy to carry so it tends to go unnoticed.

The expression baggage mostly comes from relationship issues, leftover emotions from the last relationship that gets unpacked and used in this relationship even when they are totally inappropriate. The term inventory comes mostly from twelve-step recovery literature. I have combined the two here because they have a whole lot of common elements.

People who unpack their baggage find a whole lot of negative emotions, anger, fear, and resentments, that they need to inventory before they can move on. Any good twelve-stepper can tell you that the big book says that inventories are not only done in red ink. You need to give yourself credit for the good parts of yourself.

That asset taking, the black ink part of the inventory, will come up in a later post.

The big book then goes on to provide specific directions on how to do a fourth step inventory of your anger, fears, and resentments.  I will not try to repeat that explanation here. If you are interested in the full discussion the A.A. big book titled simply enough “Alcoholics Anonymous,” is available inexpensively and most everywhere.

While we have since developed over 300 different therapy schools, each with its own set of initials and applications to various disorders, the A.A. program appears to work no matter what problem it is applied to.

The closest cousin to this A.A. program among the therapy schools is the CBT process and its cousins REBT and DBT.

The short version here is that by one method or another, the way to get recovery is to get a head change. Your thinking needs to change for your feelings to change.

The reason we get hurt in life is that our expectations for others are faulty. We need to reexamine our beliefs about why people do things. What we find is that other people’s behavior is rarely about us. It is usually about them. Sick people do sick things. If we try to hang onto that sickness, stay angry and resentful, we stay just as sick as they are. Maybe sicker, because as we know better we should do better.

So we don’t need to hang on to all that anger and resentment. That does not mean we forget. Those experiences made us who we are, but we do stop ruminating on these old injuries “gnawing on the things that are eating us” as Casey Truffo called it.

So do you have any negative emotions on your inventory list, some anger and fear and resentments, you are ready to let go of? Toss that stuff, lighten your load and let’s get moving on this journey towards a happy life.

If you don’t have the strength to do the tossing, recruit some help, a counselor, sponsor or a friend can help you sort through that pain and become willing to let go of the past.

You need to jettison the past; it is heavy to carry and takes up a lot of room in the baggage. If you intend to get to that new happy life you had better plan to travel light. The joy and the happiness, hold onto that, it never seems to take up any room in the luggage, and the more of it, you spread around, the more you seem to have.

This lightening the load, getting rid of the garbage that is holding us back, some people do it quickly, but most of us need to do it over and over again. Keep coming back to it whenever you need to.

If you get going on this journey towards happiness you will quickly find that you just don’t have room for all that baggage. The closer you get towards your happy life goal the less value you will find in that junk and the easier it will be to get rid of it.

So let’s get moving. One last thing to consider. Who will you be taking along with you on this quest to find your happy life?

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

Can an LPCC practice privately? Reader Question # 2

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

So now LPCC’s are licensed – where can they work?

In California, an LPCC can practice privately if – and only if, they are licensed here in California. So far the only people who meet this requirement are those who already had another license (LMFT or LCSW) here in California and who took the Gap exam to qualify for the LPCC license also. People who were licensed as a Professional Counselor in other states and moved here are beginning to qualify to take exams and become California licensed LPCC’s.

LPCC’s have a special role in working in career counseling, mediation, and a few other areas that are somewhat different from other mental health professions. LPCC’s should not treat children, families, or couples unless they have had additional training in those areas similar to the training LMFT’s receive.

Interns of any license (MFT interns, ASW, and PCC interns) are not allowed to have their own practice and must work under another licensed person. In a for-profit practice, the intern can only work for a limited period (6 years) while gathering supervised hours and testing. Interns and associates who work in governmental settings or other “exempt” settings may be able to work longer than the 6 year period their first intern number is good for.

Because of quality concerns, I expect most employers to limit the time interns who work for them have to get licensed and still work seeing clients.

Some people are attempting to get around this licensing requirement by calling themselves Life Coaches, a profession that to the best of my knowledge is currently not licensed or regulated. If the client’s issue relates to anything that may be caused by a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder then the client should be seen by a licensed mental health professional. Coaches should restrict their practice to clients who do not have a mental illness but want help in accomplishing more in life.

The more promotional material I read and view online from coaches the more nervous I am that they may be stepping outside their scope of competency as well as their scope of practice.

The laws may vary in other jurisdictions but the legal and ethical principles to stay within your scope of practice and scope of competency should be the same everywhere.

Thanks for that question.

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

Medication to treat alcoholism – Disulfiram, Antabuse and Naltrexone

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

Drugs

Medications.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Are there medications to treat alcoholism?

Two ways to chemically treat alcoholism.

We have been looking for a medication to treat alcoholism for a long time. There are two principle ways in which this is supposed to work.  One goal has been to find ways to turn the alcoholic back into a normal drinker. If only we could find a medication that relieves the cravings then the problem alcoholic could be taught to drink normally again. The other option is a medication that will keep the alcoholic from drinking.

The search for an alcoholism cure.

As far back as the A.A. Big Book in the 1930’s Bill was saying that maybe someday there would be a pill or medication that could turn an alcoholic into a normal drinker. It hadn’t happened back then and despite all our medical advances we still don’t have that sort of medication.

While a few medications have been tested to try to reduce the cravings, to date I know of no medication that will restore an alcoholic to a normal drinker. The only option for someone once they have progressed from a drinker to a problem drinker seems to be to stop drinking altogether.

While there are treatment programs to help the alcoholic or the problem drinker give up drinking and stay sober, a cure for alcoholism remains elusive.

Drugs that might reduce the pleasure of drinking, Naltrexone, and others, have been suggested for reducing cravings. One characteristic of addiction, to all substances, is an increase in tolerance after using your drug of choice. Over time the alcoholic needs to drink more to get the same result. Drugs that reduce cravings seem to accelerate the process of drinking more to offset the reduced pleasure from fewer drinks.

Keeping the alcoholic from drinking.

One drug, Disulfiram which is marketed under the trade names Antabuse or Antabuse produces so severe a reaction for people who take the drug and then drink it has been widely tested as a preventative.  There are other drugs that produce this same effect.

Disulfiram has uses other than keeping an alcoholic from drinking. Originally tested to treat parasite infections, those who took the drug and then drank became violently ill.

Alcohol, when consumed, is broken down through several steps until it is transformed into water and can be eliminated from the body. One of these breakdown products is acetaldehyde, which is even more toxic than the original alcohol. Having acetaldehyde in your system is a major reason for the severity of hangovers.

Disulfiram prevents the elimination of Acetaldehyde and results in prolonging and intensifying many of the symptoms of a hangover.

With Disulfiram in the bloodstream the drinker experiences severe flushing of the skin, nausea, vomiting, headache, shortness of breath, and many other serious even life-threatening symptoms. Further the longer the Disulfiram is taken the stronger the effects become. People who take Disulfiram develop little or no tolerance to the medication.

You would think that taking a medication that made you violently sick every time you drank would be enough to cure a drinker. It doesn’t work that way.

Medication Compliance is a major problem with most medications. While a psychiatric medication may work exceptionally well, people frequently do not take their medication every day as prescribed.

Antabuse is one medication that is not likely to be taken as prescribed. The symptoms it produces are severe and if the alcoholic continues to drink with Antabuse in their system they are likely to end up in the hospital. The alcoholic will often stop taking the medication so they can drink again.

Antabuse clears from the system very slowly. There is a high potential for alcoholics to stop taking their meds and drink. Physicians are warned to discuss the possible medical risks of drinking while taking Antabuse.

The relapse rate with Alcoholics is very high. Many studies have found no improvement in abstinence between those given the medication and those who use other methods to quit drinking. As a result, Antabuse is not widely prescribed to treat alcoholism.

Other drugs that make you sick when taken with Alcohol.

Disulfiram is not the only medication that can produce this effect. Drinking Alcohol while you have several other items in your bloodstream can result in extreme sickness. Several antibiotics carry label warnings to not drink alcohol while taking these meds because of a possible “Disulfiram-like reaction.” Some anti-fungal drugs and at least one type of common mushroom can also interact with alcohol to produce extremely violent hangover-like symptoms after as little as one drink.

The conclusions on meds to reduce or cure drinking?

To date, no medication has gained widespread acceptance in the treatment of alcoholism. A few people, a few times, have reported that meds helped.  If you think meds will help, talk with your doctor. Be forewarned, the meds will not cure you. You will still need to do a lot of work on yourself.

There are some medications that are helpful for treating withdrawals and as alcohol withdrawals can be fatal I recommend that chronic alcoholics need to see a medical doctor for withdrawal. See my post on why Pink Elephants can kill.

The diseases of alcoholism and addiction are mostly in the mind or thinking not in the body. Treatment that changes the person’s thinking is far more effective than medications.

There is no medication that will allow you to drink and not be an alcoholic. Like other life problems, you need to do the work of changing yourself. Others can help you but you do the work.

Hope that information about Medication to treat alcoholism – Disulfiram, Antabuse, and Naltrexone was helpful for some of you on your path to self-improvement.

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

Your autobiography as therapy.

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

Your autobiography as therapy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Where did all this emotional stuff come from?

Most businesses take inventory every year. It is good to see what you have and also what is missing. For many businesses there is a step that needs to be taken before we can even begin to take that inventory, it involves cleaning up the warehouse.

Businesses accumulate a lot of junk. There are boxes and bags tucked here and there and no one remembers what is in them and where they came from. Our emotional lives get like that also.

We have an “insecurity” here and a “resentment” there. Something that is said at work triggers a memory of another time we were told that same thing and it made us feel really awful. Only we can’t remember when that other time was and how that happened. We have boxes and baggage but we don’t know what it goes to.

Before you get to the point of taking an emotional life experiences inventory, which is coming up soon, it pays to try to figure out what this stuff you are feeling is and where it came from.

In a previous post, I talked about how our minds have at least two memory systems. We have a verbal, story type memory which is stored as words, this happened and then that. We also have an emotional, feelings memory which is stored as pictures and sensations. Very likely there are other memory processes but let’s just work with these two for now.

So you see something, a single fresh flower lying on the floor next to an empty beer bottle. What does this mean? Some people will think nothing of it, pick the bottle and the flower up and maybe put some water in the bottle for the flower. Others of you will get upset, start to cry, and run away without touching a thing.

Past experiences have conditioned a response to this scene. You have learned from experience what this will mean to you emotionally and you have launched into an automatic response.

One way to begin to find these past events, to make some sense of them, and see why those past experiences are continuing to influence you today is to write out your autobiography. In the beginning, it is not necessary to figure out everything.  Just write the memory down.

Some people start trying to interpret things from the start. Do not fall into that trap. You remember being in a room with a particular decor and you were scared. Don’t run for the “was I molested” trap. Just know that you were there and you were scared. That experience increased the risk that when you see that decor again you will feel scared again whether this is a dangerous situation or not.

So write down the first thing you remember in life, then the next. I recommend for this using a loose-leaf book. You may find every time you write about something you will remember something else. There may be gaps in your memory. At this point all that matters are you are exploring you. Finding out what feelings you have had and where they may have originated.

In a later post, I will talk about how to do an inventory of these experiences and emotions. For now just work on getting back in touch with you, who you are what you have felt and how did you come to be you.

Some of these remembered experiences will provide insight. You always knew this; you just never invested the time in yourself to think this through. Some experiences in your life are just that, experiences. No emotional content. Some have left lifelong scars even if you have not been consciously aware of them.

Please don’t only look for the sad, the painful experiences. Along the way find the things that were happy times. Maybe the memory will be of a pet or a special person who was in your life if only for a while. If you had that pet, for a while, and then you lost them, think of the time when you had them. How did you feel? What did you do?

If you can find that reflected crystal of joy from that time then you can tuck it away and recreate it at will. That time you were so happy, that special place, you can get back there again when you need to.

This project, taking a look at you and how you became the person you are, will take some time. We will want to return to it again and again. Tuck those pages away and keep adding to them as you think of more you remember.

In a future post, we will look at the process of inventorying those feelings that these memories and stories produced.

So far this year, we have done a lot of work on finding out who we are, what we value, and how we became the people we are. You have also thought about who you want to be, the place you are going to find that happy life. This might be a place to take a break.

Some posts on other topics are coming up along with some answers to reader questions. But keep working on your autobiography and your other projects in the meantime. We will get back to the self-improvement program soon.

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