About:
Becca is a licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project and Yale University. She serves as Director of Peer Support at Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, using her lived experience with mental illness and Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease (YOPD) to inform her work.
We asked Rebecca Miller to share some fun and interesting things about herself—here’s what she revealed:
🍽 What person living or dead would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I would love to invite Emily Dickinson to my dream dinner party. She is one of my favorite poets, and her story is very mysterious. I might have to have a private meeting with her, though, as I wonder if she would hate dinner parties!
🐌 What is your spirit animal?
An animal that I relate to is the snail; slow and steady, and I love the metaphor of the spiral as a symbol of the journey of life. Ironically it was an animal (or mollusk, technically) that called to me 20 years before I received my Parkinson’s diagnosis.
🇯🇵 Where is the best destination you’ve been to and why?
I loved my trip to Kyoto, Japan for a conference on Parkinson’s Disease in 2019. The city was so beautiful and walkable, with amazing temples and gardens.
🧞♂️ If you had one wish to improve the world, what would you change?
It seems like distribution—of food, money, etc.—is askew and causes lots of problems. If we could find a way to distribute things in a more equitable and timely way, I think that might change the world for the better.
📚Which books do you recommend to others?
I would recommend the book “How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Organizing and Cleaning” by KC Davis.
Also “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert Sapolsky.
“Franny and Zooey” by J. D. Salinger.
And “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, et al.
