Renée Miller MA, LMFT

Founder and Executive Director

After winning a near-fatal and years-long battle with anorexia, Renée devotes her professional life to helping others fully recover from eating disorders. Empowering others “to recover for life,” as she says.

A native of Birmingham, Renée completed undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing and Antioch University in Los Angeles, California. She earned a Master of Arts in Psychology from Antioch University. She completed an additional internship in self-injury and trauma, and also trained at the Loyola Marymount University Art Therapy Program in Los Angeles.

Renée is an adjunct-faculty member of the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she currently teaches eating-disorder-related seminars to honors students. She is vice president of the Alabama Foundation for Eating Disorders, a nonprofit group devoted to advocacy and awareness.

She has treated clients with eating disorders for nearly nine years, and has worked in the field of eating disorders and women’s issues for more than 12 years.

“I love my work, people are amazing to me,” Renée says.

“I see people change. I watch them slowly alter a belief or thought that impacts their entire existence in the world. I see the joy in their eyes, in their body, when a connection is made and an understanding is reached. I’m a witness to their recognition that they are wonderful in their raw, natural state – that flaws are fine, we all have them. Together, my clients and I find beauty in things the world says aren’t beautiful. This process drives me to question, seek, explore and, ultimately, make a difference.”

Renée also maintains a Birmingham-based private practice specializing in eating disorders, trauma and self-injury. Renée has worked as a consultant for eating-disorder treatment programs nationally. She founded and developed Alabama's first and only residential treatment center for eating disorders.

Before returning to her hometown, Renée worked with eating disorders throughout the United States. She was the Lead Counselor and consultant at the Center for Discovery, an adolescent residential eating-disorder program; Assistant Program Director at Castlewood Treatment Center for eating disorders in St. Louis, Missouri; and a private-practice therapist in Los Angeles, treating those with eating disorders, self-injury, trauma and women's issues.

Renée intimately understands how eating disorders destruct the lives of those with the illness and their loved ones. Yet, she realizes that each struggle is unique. She believes in individualized, respectful and relationship-based treatment that works in collaboration with – not against – each client.

Early in her journey to recovery, Renée got the nickname “Holly,” and it stuck. Today, friends use Renée, Holly and Holly- Renée interchangeably.

Renée is a skilled athlete, vocalist, musician, artist and a fine-coffee drinker. Her book collection is vast, and although Renée loves to share, she’s unlikely to loan out “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” a Harry Potter title or anything by Tom Wolfe.

On a Saturday, she'd enjoy nothing more than curling up on the couch with her two huge dogs, a few good friends and an old movie, like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Renée has a wonderful, quirky sense of humor that helps her keep perspective on this thing called life.