Meet BeX Kagan | Licensed Professional Counselor/Mental Health Psychotherapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with BeX Kagan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi BeX, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
There are several factors behind my success as the owner of Kagan Counseling and I’d like to focus on two.

One: my practice is centered on human connection, the art and beauty of deep, trusting relationships, and both seeing and honoring the soul of a person. This level of “seeing” is something everyone deserves but not everyone has had the privilege of experiencing and this is what I offer my clients. When I was new to the mental health field one of my supervisors told me that “90% of a client’s ability to make changes in psychotherapy is about the relationship they have with their therapist” and this mantra has stuck with me for the decade I have worked in the field. I believe connection is the reason we are here on this Earth and I get to connect with others for a living which is wholesome, meaningful, and magical.

When it comes to the therapeutic relationship, I believe that human beings have free will and that each person has their own internal compass and a “gut feeling” that can help them make important decisions in their lives if they learn to listen to it and check in with themselves. This includes choosing a licensed psychotherapist to work with. I offer a free 30 minute Zoom or in person consultation to anyone desiring to work together in psychotherapy so that folx can check in with themselves about “appropriateness of fit” and I can do the same..and because I have a passion for working with marginalized communities, I offer 7 sliding scale spots to make therapy more accessible for the community at large.

My success has deep roots in the awareness that I’m not for everyone and everyone isn’t for me and when there is a deep therapeutic connection, my clients can move mountains in their lives and heal wounds in their hearts, bodies, souls, and relationships…. and they do!

Two: One of the most important factors in my entrepreneurial success is the work I have personally done and continue to do in my own psychotherapy. My psychotherapist has helped me sort through my own mental health struggles, life traumas, and limiting beliefs.. and I, too, have been a client in psychotherapy for the last ten years!! As mental health professionals, we can’t authentically support our clients in going to emotional places we ourselves haven’t visited and been willing to go on our own. So the depth I get to work with my clients is parallel to how far I have been willing to process my own life and experience with trauma. It’s a beautiful thing and I wish more psychotherapists would do their own work… the success of our businesses and the success of my clients partially depends on this honoring of self first.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
At Kagan Counseling, my work with clients is through compassion, appropriate humor, gentle confrontation, and unconditional positive regard. My clients learn to create a more positive internal dialogue so that they can trust themselves right now and in the future. I support folx in finding their voice so that they can begin to communicate their boundaries constructively despite these stressful times. In our work together, clients learn to take back their power from traumatic life circumstances, beginning to tap into their own intuition.. I also specialize in Highly Sensitive People (HSPs/empaths) and working with marginalized communities like POC, LGBTQIA+, and women. Specialties include: healthy boundaries, identity, self-love & worth, attachment styles.

What sets me apart? Oh, I don’t know…  I’m compassionately direct with my clients (I will say the hard thing) and my clients both laugh and cry in my office, sometimes in the same session… therapy isn’t all tears.. though tears are healthy and we must feel things all the way through… I use a lot of appropriate humor with my clients, drop a “f bomb* from time to time, specialize in teens over 15 and adults, and offer a deep level of humanness for my clients to feel supported on their journey towards mental health recovery..

It was not easy to get where I am today business-wise! I had to look in the mirror a lot and face my own self-doubt, learn to get out of my own way, and really ground down in order to believe in myself. I overcame my own challenges by going to my own therapy!!, talking things through with some of my colleagues, and learning from my own “mistakes” (which I call growth edges).

Some of the most encouraging lessons I have learned is that the world is abundant! If I truly believe this, my practice runs very fluidly.. and business is easy (my practice being full for many months now is a testament to this practice). It was the times earlier in opening my practice when I was faced with self-doubt, thoughts pondering, “Am I good enough?”, and I was stuck in “lack” (the opposite of abundance)…and so I attracted that lack.. things were slow and I wasn’t sure I would make it. Those days were important to keep me humble in embracing humility. Other lessons have been “I am who I surround myself with” both personally and professionally, music, heart to hearts, art, and my dog “Rumi” all heal. Also, my “best” is different everyday, have grit, stay true to yourself and who you are, struggles can create resiliency which can then offer a healthy wholesome perspective… Imperfections are part of the human experience,

I want the world to know that after 38 years, I believe that I matter… and so do you, and so does everyone but you/they have to believe it to be true for it to “land.” Psychotherapy can help immensely with this: my own mental health journey with self esteem struggles, overcoming anxiety, trauma, and depression are a testament to this.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oooo the Denver Botanic Gardens… it is one of the more “zen” places this city has to offer.. then I’d go out the back gate to Cheesman Park, which is the most inclusive park we have to offer here in Denver, lunch at City O City, Sushi Den for dinner, followed by drinks at sunset at Peaks Lounge on the 27th floor of the Hyatt Regency downtown.

Days to follow would include hikes in Golden or Evergreen and definitely finding some water (one of our rivers) to sit by and just be present in life. Other things to checkout: our music and art scenes are off the charts! Any show at Red Rocks is capable of healing the soul.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to dedicate my shoutout to my family. Kagan/Price-Kagan’s are devout when it comes to social justice, giving back to the greater community at large, and authentically being good humans/caring about others. Much of who I am today is because I was raised by such good-hearted and well-intentioned humans who taught me that there is love in giving.

Additionally, big love to my colleagues of “5280 Force” for the way they have supported me and my business over the years and keeping me laughing, even through a global pandemic, surviving a really scary version of covid, and this mental health crisis!

Website: http://beckykagancounseling.com/

Instagram: Kagan_Counseling

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bex-kagan-ma-lpc-she-her-hers-75248841/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kagancounseling

Other: Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/bex-kagan-denver-co/318624

Image Credits
Photographer: Carlito Fuermann