Dr. Alison Miller
Experienced, mature, compassionate, knowledgeable
Dr. Miller's specialties are work with parents and families, and work with survivors of extreme childhood abuse and trauma. She provides workshops, supervision and consultation as well as direct therapy in these areas.
- couple therapy
- family of origin work
- family therapy
- teens
- parenting consultation
- parenting training
- dissociative disorders
- child abuse survivors
- workshops for therapists
- supervision and consultation
Work with Children, Parents, Couples and Families
Dr. Miller has extensive experience working with children, parents, couples and families. She spent 17 years working for Child & Youth Mental Health Services. While raising her own three children, she privately developed the LIFE (Living in Families Effectively) Seminars for parents, which have been continued by her associate Dr. Allison Rees. See www.lifeseminars.com for Dr. Miller's "Ask Alison" parenting articles, books, and parenting DVDs. In private practice she provides individual therapy for adults, teens and older children, and couple and family therapy. Her approach combines various family systems theories with an awareness of attachment issues and Emotionally Focused Therapy. She believes that parents' families of origin have a big effect on how they relate in their families as adults, and works with history as well as present issues. Children and teens find her easy to talk to.
Books
- Sidestepping the Power Struggle
- The Parent-Child Connection
- Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (chapter)
- Encyclopedia of Family Violence (chapter)
- Down-to-Earth Solutions to Everyday Parenting Problems (e-book)
DVDs
- Boundaries in Families
- The Family System
- Understanding and Managing Feelings
- Discovering and Meeting Needs
- Loving Parenting and Self-Esteem
- Conditional and Unconditional Love
- Development of the Child's Understanding
- Development of the Child's Self
- The ABCs of Human Behaviour
- Developing Values and Empathy
- Developing Independence and Responsibility
- (see www.lifeseminars.com)
Work with Trauma Survivors
Since the early 1990s Dr. Miller has been working with survivors of childhood trauma, including those with dissociative disorders, which result from extreme and prolonged childhood trauma. She is a past president of the Canadian Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and of the Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Special Interest Group of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Dr. Miller's expertise includes considerable experience and knowledge in the area of survivors of organized criminal child abuse, including child prostitution and pornography, cults, and political mind control agencies. At this point in her career Dr. Miller prefers to provide consultation and training to other therapists rather than take on new cases of this nature, since psychotherapy for such survivors takes several years.
Cases Not Seen
- children of high-conflict divorce
- custody & access assessments
- intellectual or personality assessments
- head injuries
- psychotic disorders
- children younger than eleven
- new clients with extensive child abuse histories