Owen Miller LMHC

About Me

I'm a licensed metal health counselor working out of Fountain Square Mall in Bloomington, IN. 

While a philosopher by education and teacher by aspiration, I have learned the best way to foster growth and healing in others is through relationship, presence, and genuine care -- not simply through knowledge and mere teaching. My approach to caregiving, then, has matured into one of presence: I aspire to be present with you in the most loving, meaningful, and restorative way possible. This means that as a client, in addition to the concrete skills, self-understanding, and education that fosters your well-being, you will experience a potent and deep relationship where you can be cared for truly as yourself. I describe below how this latter point is not only a crucial human experience to have, but is further itself a cause for healing and growth.

Supporting our relationship I have especially strong technical skills in sex therapy, the exploration of gender and sexuality, the treatment for personality disorders and trauma/PTSD, and in exploring spiritual/existential issues.

To accomplish this, I offer a deep empathic understanding, insightful questions, awareness of how we are interacting, useful psychological and philosophical knowledge, and a profound presence that's supported by my daily meditation practice and my own extensive history in personal therapy. 

I support our relationship with a trauma-informed approach to the therapeutic process that is flexible to your needs. My theoretical orientation is eclectic but focuses on existential, interpersonal, and psychodynamic perspectives.

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Regardless of your initial concern, my goal with each client is to help them establish what I call "accountable self-compassion":  a sense of self-love that encourages growth. I will support you as you come to experience your self, others, and the world in ways that are more meaningful and satisfying to you (1) while addressing mental health symptoms or concerning life problems.

I do this by establishing an intimate and mature therapeutic relationship.  According to the research, the quality of our relationship is the driving factor in successful therapy (2). My goal as a therapist is to nurture and care for you in emotional, developmental, therapeutically technical, and humanistic ways. Besides the therapeutic value of such a deep relationship, it is a rare experience that we can be fully seen and encountered by another human person, one that by itself is priceless. It is the great joy of my work to extend this kind of relationship to all I can.

To that end, our relationship is a space to query your way of relating to yourself and others. How you go about engaging with yourself and others is itself a significant factor in your wellbeing, through the process of reflective functioning, which therapy has been shown to improve (3) (4). Reflective functioning is a common factor in how all therapies improve one's wellbeing, and refers to one's ability to accurately identify, name, and describe their inner world, patterns of experience and behavior, motivations, and intentions, as well as those of others. Improving reflective functioning improves one's ability to intentionally navigate their experience in ways that are meaningful, satisfying, and effective. Taken together, this means that therapy both improves self-awareness and self-honesty while improving mental-emotional wellness.

My approach is thus oriented towards improving reflective functioning in the context of a humanistic container in which you feel cherished as yourself, warts and all.

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I offer telehealth and in-person services as fits the client's needs and preferences.

I work best with teenagers through to older adults; I also work with couples. I'm particularly experienced working with younger adults (18-30).

It is imperative for me to work in a way that strives for social justice and equitability. I am eager to work with clients of all backgrounds, especially those that have a history of being discriminated against in the mental health professions. I invite everyone to work with me: people of color, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, people of non-Christian and or no faith(s), people with disabilities, people involved in the criminal justice system, sex workers, polyamorous people, and kinky people.

My identify as a male bicurious non-binary White Soto Zen Buddhist. I am open to discussing how these identities may impact our relationship when that is relevant to you. Importantly, I do not practice therapy from a religious framework.  I endorse an interfaith, developmentally-minded notion of commitment to a belief system or no belief system at all. 

Of special importance to me is supporting people who are burdened by socioeconomic concerns. If payment for services is a concern for you, please reach out so we may discuss an affordable fee.