Lauren Nelson

     As you drive along Boundary Street past Beaufort Town Center, you might not realize that the large mixed-use building with Moe’s Southwest Grill on the ground floor is now home to a new community resource. Beaufort Psychological Services is dedicated to personal development, healing, and long-term wellness and resilience, which owner Lauren Nelson believes is essential for individuals and communities to thrive.

     Lauren’s passion for mental health — and the comprehensive, empathetic approach that she would build and refine throughout her career — first took root during her childhood in Toledo, Ohio. Inspired by her mother, who worked as a special-education teacher, and her younger sister, who battled significant mental health issues from a young age, Lauren earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville.

     Following graduation, the road forward became unclear for a time. She moved to Charleston, South Carolina, in 2003 and worked in retail management.

     She always enjoyed working with people, she remembers, but ultimately felt a deeper calling. Lauren wanted to help people in a more meaningful way.

     “I was trying to figure out what to do with my life,” she says. “I thought about my mom and my sister, and I started looking into school psychology.”

     Lauren learned that The Citadel offered a post-graduate program for civilians that would allow her to earn Master of Science and Education Specialist degrees in school psychology. She

applied in 2007, was accepted in 2008, and graduated in 2011.

     “I was unsure going in, but the program allowed me to take up to 12 hours before acceptance,” she says. “I fell in love with it.”

     While she was a student at The Citadel, Lauren married Pete Nelson, an active-duty member of the SC Army National Guard. In 2010, they moved to Arlington, Virginia, where she completed her final internship and then joined Stafford County Public Schools.

     Over the next decade, the Nelsons would move multiple times. After Arlington, they lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where Lauren worked in the Richland County School District as a school psychologist while Pete deployed first to Afghanistan and later to Kuwait and Iraq.

     Their next move was to Wiesbaden, Germany, where Lauren served as a substitute teacher and filled in as the school psychologist. Upon their return to Virginia, she rejoined the Stafford County School District, focusing on preschool and elementary school students.

   They also lived briefly in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where she took a position with the Department of Defense Education Activity.

     “We moved there just as the COVID pandemic erupted,” Lauren remembers. “We were only there for a year. Pete retired in 2020 but took a position as a defense contractor that allowed us to return to Wiesbaden.”

     In Germany, she worked with middle and high school students for the first time. Engaging with different age groups proved to be both educational and rewarding.

     “I worked with young kids during the first 10 years of my career, and they’re so innocent, everything with them is behavior-based,” she says. “With tweens and teens, there’s language and reciprocal conversation. Teaching and learning become the application versus behavior modification.”

     Most of Lauren’s time as a school psychologist involved testing and evaluating her students. This proved to be an unexpected and powerful catalyst as she quickly realized she needed to make a shift in her career.

     “I just didn’t have enough time to get to know these kids and really support the ones who were struggling,” she explains.

     Lauren became a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in 2022 and opened her own private practice. A year later, she also became a Licensed Psychoeducational Specialist (LPES) so she would be able to work with individuals and organizations in a diagnostic capacity, providing tailored psychological and psychoeducational testing.

     Those weren’t the only major changes. In spring 2024, the Nelsons bought a home in Beaufort and moved to South Carolina permanently.

     The move felt natural for the family. Pete grew up in Beaufort, attended Battery Creek High School, and graduated from The Citadel.

     “We first met in Charleston, and I always loved the Lowcountry,” Lauren says. “Our youngest son Chase is now 13 and spent seven years of his life overseas. We wanted to give him what Pete remembers from his own childhood.”

     The rest of the family is nearby too. Daughter, Lilly, 20, is a student at Trident Technical College in North Charleston, where she is studying to become a special education paraprofessional. Son Alex, 19, is in his freshman year at the College of Charleston.

Lauren opened Beaufort Psychological Services this past July. She says her practice is unique because she can serve the community both as a professional counselor and as a psychoeducational specialist.

     “These are two different worlds and being able to operate in both gives me a niche,” she says.

     As a licensed professional counselor with an extensive list of specialties and areas of expertise, Lauren sees clients ages 12 and up. For those over age 16, she also can provide Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.

     “It is the most research-based therapeutic technique for trauma,” she explains. “It allows us to do a deep dive into underlying issues, which is helpful for those with post-traumatic stress disorder, such as military personnel, first responders, and sexual assault victims, as well as those who struggle with anxiety and depression.”

     “My approach as a therapist is to be solutions-focused,” she continues. “That comes from my background as a school psychologist. I like providing psychological education. It’s so rewarding to see the lightbulbs go off and to be part of that process.”

     When she puts on her LPES hat, Lauren enjoys the diagnostic,

data-driven aspect of that work. Here, too, she is focused on solutions: Understanding that the unknown is more frightening than the known, she seeks to identify the key factors that are having an impact on a student’s learning and then implement a plan for success.

     “When I see a child struggling and a parent desperate to help, I feel a sense of responsibility, and I take that very seriously,” she says. “As humans, when we’re faced with a lack of information, we tend to fill in the gaps with worst-case scenarios. So, instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, I provide the data and the facts. Then we can make decisions.”

     With this experience and expertise, Lauren is ideally suited for yet another passion: educational advocacy and consultation. In this capacity, she works with students, parents, and schools if there is concern about academic progress, testing, or legal documentation, such as Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

     “I want to support families, so they know how to approach schools and ask the right questions,” she says. “I want to help them understand their rights.”

     Going forward, Lauren hopes to add even more therapeutic options to her practice. She also would like to expand her ability to support families who need psychological and psychoeducational evaluations, as existing waiting lists can be months long.

     And she also hopes her work will benefit her adopted home community. She recently joined the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club of Beaufort and is learning as much as possible.

     “We are a military family, and we had no roots for a long time,” she reflects. “When we bought our home, we said, ‘This is where we are going to be.’ I am grateful to have found a niche with my practice, and I am deeply invested in Beaufort. There are limited mental-health resources here, and I want to be part of changing that.”