Vagus Counseling

02/16/2025

A friend moving to South America wanted me to build an online therapy marketing site to bring referrals. It will compete grass roots and CEO with the corporatized agencies. Everything will be totally free for the first six months. It is a marketing cooperative and will probably switch to a non profit status in a year.

Why am I doing this?, #1 The corporatized online companies are destroying the quality of care of the profession. #2 I want to be proven wrong that ten therapists can combine efforts to bring better services independently and collectively.

People are stating Hello Alma does not bring in good referrals. This can be the solution.

Note: Everything on this page is currently only an example including the therapist profiles and contact information. Please reach out to me on here.

Utah Tele Therapy For local QUALITY online therapy. Therapy Seekers Learn More This Page is under construction and not open for client use yet. Clinicians Learn More Eleanor Parks LMHCHi, I’m Eleanor. As a therapist, my approach is grounded in empathy and understanding, particularly for individual...

03/29/2024

Men’s humor is important in mental health. It’s hard to find places where we can share our humor.

02/19/2024

Vagus Counseling refuses to participate in Identity Politics. I embrace the uniqueness of every individual that walks in my door. Social-justice therapy risks harm by overlooking the fact that race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity may not be the most important dimensions of your healing needs. We work together to embrace your uniqueness and how to thrive in the world verses stereotyping you into an avatar of a category.

02/08/2024

This is a great illustration of how we view trauma bonding as the answer. At Vagus Counseling it is about having the courage to be our true selves in the world where not everyone will understand us.

01/31/2024

Many people are concerned that Brainspotting and EMDR are a form of dark magic. While it does help your brain bend time back to traumatic memories, it does it with simple neuroscience. Slowing down your brain stems fear responses and inducing the same state as REM sleep. You can leave the spot at any time.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is considered highly efficacious for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and has proved to be a valid treatment approach with a wide range of applications. However, EMDR’s mechanisms ...

01/19/2024

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stress-fracture/202002/it-was-me-i-did-it-why-no-one-takes-accountability-anymore?amp

There are ways to build deeper connections with others.

01/16/2024

"Addiction comes from that desire for all humans craving someone to tell them it will be ok in this world." - Mark Wolynn. No Bad Parts therapists are often misunderstood. We are not saying drug abuse is healthy. Although who am I as a therapist to say that your best friend through hard times is bad. In therapy we strive to identify why something is working so well for you then we go from there.

01/16/2024

CBT only addresses the Prefrontal Cortex. Brainspotting connects the nervous system responses to the Limbic Brain back to the Prefrontal Cortex.

01/15/2024

There is no clear scientific link to Long COVID although somatic therapies seam to be helping. Experiential therapies address anxieties that are trapped in the nervous system and muscles. Not the brain!!

A new long COVID study finds evidence of widespread muscle problems, suggesting biological causes for extreme exhaustion after exercise. (This story first aired on Morning Edition on January 9, 2024.)

01/12/2024

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/small-town-usa/202401/is-dysfunctionalism-the-new-norm-in-modern-life?amp

Personal Perspective: We create things to simplify our lives.

01/08/2024

One guiding factor to proper trauma treatment is the "No Bad Parts" philosophy. We firmly believe that all behavior helped you in some way to survive. The end goal of all behavior is survival!! At Vagus counseling we do not do Personal Inventories' or use models of shame. We do not say all behaviors are healthy although we note "The behavior once served us but no longer does." ((Quality trauma treatment in person in Ogden or Telehealth in Utah.))

Reality is much weirder than anyone’s imagination.At Vagus Counseling we use Brainspotting an advanced form of EMDR therapy, and other experiential therapies to help you experience healing in the nervous system. Trauma needs to be healed in both the mind and nervous system as trauma disrupts the f...

01/08/2024

Fibromyalgia clients working with Brainspotting allows individuals to access and process emotions stored in the body, which may be contributing to the experience of pain and discomfort. By addressing emotional aspects, individuals may find relief from both emotional and physical symptoms associated with fibromyalgia.
Studies on Brainspotting and fibromyalgia are limited, with significant client feedback that pain has been reduced.

01/06/2024

"Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young
How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from?
I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it". - Twenty One Pilots. If you where to make a candle out of a safe place as a kid what would if smell like? The old engine oil smell of your grandfathers hot rod. The driftwood smell I built a tree fort with friends out of or Grandmas cookies. Experiential Therapy and Brainspoting can induce these feelings again that we often forget after life's stress.

01/04/2024

One Myth about Brainspotting and EMDR is we will be reliving Trauma. While PTSD treatment often involves discussing and processing traumatic experiences. We often overlook how powerful empowering internal resources can be. These resources can include memories, strengths, qualities, or sensations that promote a sense of safety, calmness, or resilience.

We are able to Brainspot into positive memories and feelings of positive strengths as well. One of my favorite memories to induce is those of favorite beaches.

01/02/2024

It is important to be curios about our clients verses analyze their experience doing EMDR and Brainspotting. My first attempt as a client with EMDR I was actually considered a Treatment Failure because I was not able to feel into EMDR. I kept thinking "Oh this light bar is going to fix me". I later realized it was a trauma response "to be fixed". Many clients note that "Am I doing it right?" when seeing the Brainspotting wand. When we are curious we often find that feeling leads to a trauma response. There is no right or wrong way to do EMDR or Brainspotting.

01/02/2024

An often overlooked trauma is Developmental Trauma. The ADHD kid that isn't as attentive that starts to be blamed for others mistakes. What occurs is relational wounding - it doesn’t require a pathological lens, rather an attachment lens. What’s been hurt through relationship must be healed through relationship.

One must first establish safety in the attachment trauma that has occurred before the ADHD executive functioning skills can be addressed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6352932/ #:~:text=Developmental%20trauma%20disorder%20(DTD)%20is,%E2%80%A2

12/31/2023

Many times we forget how economics, culture, and environment shape behavior. On beautiful winter days in Utah I remember in South Dakota that there was nothing else to do but go to work. We don’t always do everything because of a mental health condition.

12/18/2023

A serious post this time. While I love bacon, serotonin is made in our gut, not brain. What we eat is very important, as Americans we are replacing healthy eating with pharmaceuticals. Vagus Counseling has brought on a Functional Nutritionist and Medical Doctor via Telehealth.

Duke University researcher Diego Bohorquez and colleagues have identified the neural circuitry that connects the gut with the brain. This pathway is spanned ...