Meet Kelly Vagts MSW, LCSW, BCN, QEEG-DC

Hello, and thank you for your interest in NeuroShift Counseling and for considering me as your therapist.

I have been practicing as a therapist and as Director of the School-Based Mental Health Program for over a decade with Grand County School District, where I have the honor of helping children, adolescents, and families heal from trauma and attachment wounds. I am now beginning a small private practice to expand this work.

Before moving to Moab in 2004, I traveled around the United States as a professional ballet dancer, working in Providence, Memphis, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Charlotte. When I left the stage, my goal was to get paid to sleep under the stars and work with at-risk youth. That goal led me to wilderness therapy, where I spent two years as field staff. It was during that time that the seed was planted for me to become a therapist.

After running a small floral design and event planning business while raising my son, I returned to graduate school and earned my Master of Social Work with a clinical focus. I graduated in 2014 and developed a pilot program for school-based therapy. In collaboration with funding from the Moab Free Health Clinic, we launched the program in November 2014—and by January, we had a waiting list at all three schools. Since then, the program has grown into a team of four full-time therapists supported by the school district and private donors.

When I began working in the schools, I quickly realized that my graduate education alone was not sufficient to meet the complexity and severity of the symptoms I was seeing. Through a series of beautiful events, I attended a two-day workshop with Bessel van der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score, which sparked my pursuit of additional training in EMDR and neurofeedback.

I was fortunate to be trained in neurofeedback by Dr. Ed Hamlin and continue to find inspiration through my interactions with him. I also had the opportunity to receive ongoing mentorship from Sebern Fisher, the author of Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain. These relationships have led to continued consultation, mentorship, and training with respected clinicians and researchers in the fields of early attachment trauma and neuroscience.

Sebern and my dear colleague, Kyle Dern, introduced me to Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR). In addition to their endorsement of DBR, its origin in the neuroscience of shock in trauma peaked my interest. It has become my preferred therapeutic approach for people suffering from trauma symptoms.

This ongoing learning has profoundly shaped the way I understand healing and has given me a diverse set of tools to meet each client where they are.

I deeply believe in the human capacity to heal, even from the most horrifying and tragic experiences. I have witnessed this capacity in my own life and in the lives of the people I have had the privilege of working with. It is an honor to accompany people on this difficult, courageous, and ultimately rewarding journey toward healing and wholeness.