Information about Alison Miller and Her Work

Dr. Alison Miller has a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia and is a retired psychologist who worked in private practice in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She worked with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control from 1991 to 2017. She was named a fellow of the ISST-D (International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation) in 2013, and was given the ISST-D President’s Award in 2021. She was the 2009 and 2017 Chair and the 2021 Secretary of the Organized and Extreme Abuse Special Interest Group of the ISST-D, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of Survivorship. Her books include: Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse (for survivors), and Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (for therapists). She has contributed chapters on ritual abuse and mind control to Noblitt & Noblitt’s Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (2008), Breitenbach’s Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise (2015), Sinason & van der Merwe’s Shattered: Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices – speaking on behalf of silenced survivors (2016), and (with Heather Gingrich) Gingrich & Gingrich’s Treating Trauma in Christian Counselling (2017).

Healing the Unimaginable: A Ten-Session Course in Treating Survivors of Organized and Extreme Abuse – Alison Miller, Ph.D., Retired Psychologist
https://survivorship.org/survivorship-webinar-2022-healing-the-unimaginable-a-ten-session-course  Website with video presentations and PowerPoints

Survivorship Webinar 2022: Healing the Unimaginable: A Ten-Session Course – PowerPoint Text
https://survivorship.org/survivorship-webinar-2022-healing-the-unimaginable-a-ten-session-course-powerpoint-text  This page has all ten PowerPoints from the webinar series converted into text.

This course is based on Dr. Miller’s 2012 book Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. It incorporates other material from Dr. Miller’s more recent publications and those of others. It was presented for clinicians in the mental health field. These videos may remind survivors of their trauma. Survivors may want to watch this with a support person. None of the material on this page, on linked pages or at the webinar is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy.

Focus on ISSTD History
An Interview with Alison Miller
This interview with Alison Miller forms part of ISSTD News’ Focus on History Series. In this series we interview people who have played an important and influential role in the formation and development of ISSTD, or the wider complex trauma and dissociative disorders field. We are delighted in this latest installment of Focus on History to interview Alison Miller, who has been working as a counsellor and psychologist since the 1960’s and is one of ISSTD’s retired members. She has been involved in the development of the Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Special Interest Group, which has grown and evolved over the years to become our Organized and Extreme Abuse SIG. She is also a past Chair and current Secretary of the SIG. She is well known to many for her conference presentations, workshops, journal articles and her books.

“These first DID clients were all members of the local Satanic cult.

KATE: I guess some mental health professionals, hearing stories of extreme abuse, may be tempted to think it is all made up or delusional, but you didn’t get a chance to disbelieve, as your situation was a little unique.

ALISON: Yes. I had these four clients, all abused by the same cult. They unknowingly corroborated each other – they had information about events and abuse… and it was still going on, these were current events … I was followed by these abusers…. I had all kinds of corroboration and evidence. I tried to work with the police, but it didn’t work out the way it should have.”

“KATE: And those who think that children must have been making it up, that these atrocities could not happen, because humans could not do that to each other, must now face the fact that police officers are literally looking at online material and studying it as evidence. The police know these things did happen to children as they see photos and videos of it.

ALISON: I think the production of materials is an important issue. Pretty much all my clients have been involved with that. There was a studio in Toronto (3000 miles away) which three of my clients had been involved with, one of them as a photographer … and this was a long time before all these things came out in the media, in the public. It is a horrible thing, but it is good that it is being discovered and the world is becoming aware that it does exist.”   https://news.isst-d.org/an-interview-with-alison-miller/

Dr. Miller’s Online Videos

Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2017 –

Survivors may want to use caution while watching these presentations. These videos are not meant as therapy or to take the place of therapy.

Confronting the Spiritual Issues in Ritual Abuse  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smVS24Fv__k

Survivors of abuse by ritualistic organized perpetrator groups report numerous experiences designed to destroy their spiritual integrity and leave them believing that they are so evil that no one but the perpetrators will accept them. These experiences include simulation of religious figures such as God, Jesus, and Satan, and the afterlife including heaven and hell; designation of certain internal parts of the victim to be demons or have “demonic attachments,” and most chillingly, forced childhood participation in rape and murder followed by systematic shaming of the victim as “evil.” Many parts of each survivor believe the perpetrators’ lies about how evil he or she must be. These experiences raise existential questions for survivors, such as why such things happen, why there is no divine intervention, and why such groups continue to exist without being stopped. We shall look at various ways of making meaning of such experiences, and whether these ways deal effectively with the horror of spiritual abuse.

Working Through Your Traumatic Memories and Destroying the Mind Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5CS_3GqeVU
In the second stage of therapy, survivors of organized abuse involving mind control have to confront the traumatic memories which caused their dissociation. Because such survivors usually have a structured personality system, work with the traumatic memories can be pursued in a systematic way. This workshop covers such issues as: deciding whether and when to pursue memories, dealing with flashbacks, choosing memories to work with, planning memory work, finding alters who hide parts of memories, involving all alters who have parts of a memory, dealing with emotions and bodily sensations during memory work, getting the story clear, and cognitive processing of what has been discovered when a memory has been reconstituted.

Alison Miller’s reply to Evan Anderson, Grey Faction Director of The Satanic Temple (TST)’s Grey Faction

In 2019, Evan Anderson of the Satanic Temple sent a formal complaint letter to Dr. Miller’s licensing board, saying that in her online videos and her book Healing the Unimaginable, she described behaviors by organized abuser groups which could not possibly be true. Shortly after that, Dr. Miller, whose membership with the licensing board was already in the non-practising category, ended her membership. The Satanic Temple claimed online that it was because of their complaint.

“The reason I discontinued my membership in the College of Psychologists has nothing to do with the Grey Faction’s harassing complaint about my writings and online videos. I left the College because I am 78 years old. I retired two years ago.”  – Alison Miller

“That is why I resigned, not because I was about to be found guilty of promoting unscientific conspiracy theories. Anderson has posted his complaint and the College’s response, distorting the story by omitting the College’s letter to me and my response to it. As for not being allowed to call myself a “psychologist,” that is the situation for every retired psychologist. It is similar for other health professions, and it does not indicate that the work I did was inferior or that I was found guilty of unethical behavior.”  – Alison Miller
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/alison-millers-reply-to-evan-anderson-grey-faction-director-of-the-satanic-temple-tsts-grey-faction/

Here is information on the Grey Faction:

Grey Faction, Satanic Temple and Lucien Greaves Fact Sheet  https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/grey-faction-satanic-temple-and-lucien-greaves-fact-sheet/

 

Books by Dr. Miller

Miller, Alison (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control is a practical, task-oriented, instructional manual designed to help therapists provide effective treatment for survivors of these most extreme forms of child abuse and mental manipulation. Paperback: 978 1 85575 882 7 Publisher: Karnac Books  https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/healing-the-unimaginable-treating-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control/30026/

https://books.google.com/books?id=On8cKGyrnfcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Healing+the+Unimaginable:+Treating+Ritual+Abuse+and+Mind+Control+By+Alison+Miller

Miller, Alison (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. In contrast to the author’s previous book, Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control, which was for therapists, this book is designed for survivors of these abuses. It takes the survivor systematically through understanding the abuses and how his or her symptoms may be consequences of these abuses, and gives practical advice regarding how a survivor can achieve stability and manage the life issues with which he or she may have difficulty. The book also teaches the survivor how to work with his or her complex personality system and with the traumatic memories, to heal the wounds created by the abuse.
A unique feature of this book is that it addresses the reader as if he or she is dissociative, and directs some information and exercises towards the internal leaders of the personality system, teaching them how to build a cooperative and healing inner community within which information is shared, each part’s needs are met, and traumatic memories can be worked through successfully. https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/

https://books.google.com/books?id=o3B_AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Becoming+Yourself:+Overcoming+Mind+Control+and+Ritual+Abuse+By+Alison+Miller

From the Trenches:  A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
By Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller
Though desiring retirement, psychologist Alison Miller offered help to the respected mind control and ritual abuse victim Wendy Hoffman. Through Wendy’s internal investigations, they discovered how Illuminati and Nazi programming works, its international goals, as well as finding out new ways to uncover the hidden, and to heal. Their goal was to gain clarity about Wendy’s cult personas, and to learn how to integrate a complicated, tortured brain.https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/

Dr. Miller’s Conference Presentations

The 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference

 

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Yourself and Your Clients Think Through the Issues (from Clinicians’ Conference) PowerPoint is at the link above. Please use caution, this may be triggering.

Sophisticated organized abuser groups use torture to deliberately split a child’s mind into different parts, train all parts to obey, and indoctrinate and train each part to do a specific job assigned by the abusers. Drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films are used to deceive and control the children and prevent them from remembering or speaking out about their abuse, even in adulthood, so that the abusers can continue perpetrating this abuse without being caught. Abusers’ power over victims depends on their victims believing their lies, and that power can be diminished when victims see through the lies told to their young parts. It is important for therapists to use critical thinking to discern the deceptions, and to help their mind-controlled clients do the same.

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Your Front People and Your Insiders Recognize the Lies and Tricks Which Keep You Enslaved by Alison Miller https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2019-conference/deception-by-organized-abuser-groups-helping-your-front-people-and-your-insiders-recognize-the-lies-and-tricks-which-keep-you-enslaved-by-alison-miller/

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Your Front People and Your Insiders Recognize the Lies and Tricks Which Keep You Enslaved by Dr. Alison Miller – PowerPoint is at the link above. Please use caution, this may be triggering.

If you are a survivor of abuse by a mind-controlling abuser group, you have parts who have been trained to obey abusers because they believe lies your abusers told you. The abusers deceived you in childhood, using drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films to control your child parts and prevent you from speaking out about the abuse. Their power over you depends on your young parts believing the abusers’ lies. If you learn to recognize when your emotions and behavior are influenced by these deceptions, and to discover the ways in which you were deceived, you can increase your freedom from the abuser group.

 

Internal Keys to Safety by Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2016
Presented at the Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse 2016 Conference – Stop Mind Control and Programs in Oakland, CA

Internal Keys to Safety
Survivors’ safety is endangered both externally by parts who maintain ongoing contact with perpetrators and respond to cues, and internally by parts trained to punish the person for forbidden behavior such as disclosures. She gave practical suggestions for survivors to achieve and maintain safety both externally and internally. https://survivorship.org/internal-keys-to-safety-by-alison-miller-survivorship-conference-2016/

Dr. Alison Miller conference PowerPoint
Overcoming Mind Control: Keys to Recovery
https://survivorship.org/documents/OvercomingMindControl.pptx

Alison Miller’s Second Conference Workshop 2015
Building Internal Cooperation
https://survivorship.org/documents/DevelopingInternalCooperation.pptx

Alison Miller’s conference presentation outline
Overcoming Mind Control: Keys to Recovery
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2014-conference/overcoming-mind-control-keys-to-recovery/

Articles and Books on Parenting and Spouse Abuse

Articles by Dr. Alison Miller and Dr. Allison Rees
http://lifeseminars.com/books/

The Parent Child Connection book for parents and professionals
Published in 2008, “The Parent-Child Connection” is the second of our original two LIFE (Living in Families Effectively) books. It’s based on the course of the same name. It contains everything you need to know about the parent-child relationship, including developing a healthy bond with your children, communicating effectively, establishing and respecting boundaries in the family, handling your own and your children’s emotions, and developing their and your self-esteem.

Sidestepping the Power Struggle book for parents and professionals
LIFE Seminars first book published in 2007 and entitled “Sidestepping the Power Struggle” contains everything you need to know about your children’s individual temperaments, their stage of development, behavior at each age, and what events can trigger difficult child behaviors. It teaches you how to help children take responsibility for their own lives as they mature, and how to help them mature into ethical and competent human beings. It discusses effective and ineffective discipline techniques. If you read and practice everything recommended in this book, it will not only empower you to become a more effective parent, but also enrich the lives of those who matter most.

Articles by Dr. Alison Miller on Parenting
http://lifeseminars.com/articles-by-alison-miller/

The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse
by Alison Miller, PhD
Abstract
Cyclical spouse abusers, whether male or female, appear to suffer from a specific type of dissociative disorder that is related to a disturbance of attachment. This disorder is sufficiently common to be designated as a dissociative disorder in its own right. The partner of the spouse abuser appears to develop a parallel dissociative process, developing chains of state-dependent memory for the different phases of the domestic abuse cycle. This dissociative process helps both partners stay in the relationship, while leaving might be the best course of action. This “dissociative dance” facilitates the formation of dissociative splits in their children, enhancing the likelihood that they will be either victims or perpetrators of domestic violence
http://www.academia.edu/4594732/Dissociative_Dance_of_Spouse_Abuse

 

Publications

Miller, A. (2019). Therapeutic neutrality, ritual abuse and maladaptive daydreaming. Frontiers in the Psychotherapy of Trauma and Dissociation, 1(3).

Hoffman, W. & Miller, A. (2018). From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. & Gingrich, H.D. (2018). The treatment of ritual abuse and mind control. In Gingrich, H.D. & Gingrich, F.C. Treating trauma in Christian counselling. Inter-Varsity Press.

Miller, A. (2017). Dissociation in families experiencing intimate partner violence. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 18 (3), The Abused and the Abuser: Victim-Perpetrator Dynamics, 427-440.

Miller, A. (2016). What’s different about ritual abuse and mind control? Chapter 10, pp. 221-232 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2016).Reflections on having my name used. Pp. 24-29 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London:Karnac.

Miller, A. (2015). Foreword to Breitenbach, G. Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise.London: Karnac (translated from German).

Miller, A. (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2012). Dialogue with the higher-ups. Pp. 111-132 in Vogt, R. & Vogt, I. (Eds.) Perpetrator Introjects: Psychotherapeutic Diagnostics and Treatment Models. Kroning: Asanger Verlag.

Miller, A. (2008). Recognizing and treating survivors of abuse by organized criminal groups. Chapter 17, pp. 479-490 in Noblitt, R. & Noblitt, P. P. (Eds.) Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.

Miller, A. (1998). Treatment of a Young Female Pedophilic Offender with Dissociative Identity Disorder, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (2), 15-23.

Miller, A. (2006). The Role of Dissociation in Spouse Abuse. In Jackson, N.A. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence. New York: Routledge.

Miller, A. (1998). The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (3), 9-18.

Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2008.)  The Parent-Child Connection:  A Manual for Effective Family Living.  Victoria, B.C.: LIFE Seminars Press.

Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2007.)  Sidestepping the Power Struggle:  A Manual for Effective Parenting.  Victoria, B.C.:  LIFE Seminars Press.