“Dear George” – Verona Author Puts Counselling Insights On Paper

Jeff Green | Jun 06, 2013

Jan Miller started her working career as an interpreter with Deaf people, and she says that interpreting what people are really saying when they talk about their lives and relationships remains at the core of her practice as a counsellor.

Her patients have ranged from couples, people with addictions, suffering from depression, fears, anxiety, and pain - a whole host of human issues.

She has also had to work through her own chronic pain as a migraine sufferer for many years, and with her own daughter's cancer treatments.

Over the years she has used a number of counselling techniques, some of them based on a treatment system called Neuro-Linguistic Programing (NLP) but branching off from there. She says that the core of her work is communication. “One thing that I don't do is judge my patients. They've had enough judgement already.”

In 2000, she started a counselling service, Jan Miller & Associates, and opened an office in Kingston. Last fall, she curtailed her practice somewhat and moved it back to her home in Verona.

“This is what my husband calls my retirement,” she said, although her practice remains busy.

She has also put her experiences into book form in the hope that readers will benefit from some of her experiences. She knows all about judgement and suffering because the source of much of her insight into treatment is based on her own experiences as a patient.

“Dear George”, the book that Miller is releasing this month, is based on a series of letters that she wrote to her own therapist over a period of time. It is also a primer for patients, written from the point of view of someone who has seen the patient’s and therapist’s side of the coin, about how to choose and work with a health care professional.

As she writes in the introduction to Dear George: “In a case where a consultation has been arranged, it's still possible to meet the person for the first appointment and decide if this relationship will be helpful to you or not. You can offer choice as well. After all, some experts may be just as surprised to see you as you are to see them. In some systems, people get the next available person instead of the best fit.”

This concept of developing a dynamic relationship between a patient and any kind of health care professional is at the core of the work that Miller has done through her counselling practice and that is why she set up Dear George as a set of letters and responses.

“I want to write a book that is easy to read, and provide people with a way to move forward. Some people who have read it have told me it got them thinking about things they never even knew they were concerned about. That, to me, is a good reaction,” said Jan Miller.

“Dear George” will have its official launch at Physiotherapy Kingston at 1459 Princess Street on Saturday, June 8, between 1 and 4 pm. There will be short readings at 2 and 3 pm. Book signings are also scheduled for the Harrowmith Tiffany Gift Shop on Wednesday, June 12 from 7-9 pm and the Chapters store in Kingston on June 15, from 12-3 pm. The book is available in soft cover at Nicole’s Gifts in Verona, the Tiffany Gift Store, and Chapters and Novel Idea in Kingston; through Amazon.ca and an e-book version is available as well.