Therapy Services
For Highly Sensitive People
Anxiety
What is anxiety?
While many HSPs regularly experience overwhelm, some also experience anxiety – anticipation of a threat that may or may not come to pass. Anxiety is often associated with restlessness or feeling "keyed up"/"on edge;" being easily fatigued; difficulty concentrating or having the mind go blank; irritability; muscle tension; sleep disturbance; hypervigilance; cautious or avoidant behaviors; and in some cases panic attacks. An anxiety disorder is diagnosed when symptoms occur more days than not, for at least 6 months, and when they result in difficulty functioning in social, academic, or work environments.
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As your therapist, here are some ways we might treat symptoms of anxiety:
​​Approach your anxiety with acceptance, love, and genuine curiosity.
Use somatic and energetic techniques to stop the spiral of feeling anxious and panicked…about feeling anxious and panicked.
Recognize somatic sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors associated with your anxiety.
Identify and challenge unhelpful patterns that contribute to anxiety.
Shake your body out, instead of freezing or dissociating.
Enter into relationship with your deeper fears, and learn what they need from you/others.
Identify what you value most, and find the courage to move towards your values instead of moving away from your fears.
Rate how anxious you are at any given moment, and apply tools to help you relieve anxieties.
Consider clinically proven lifestyle changes for anxiety, like regular exercise, balanced diet, sleep hygiene, and minimal substance use.
Improve self-care and stress management routines through relaxation techniques, mindfulness or meditation practices, and old or new hobbies.
Strengthen or build social support systems – relationships and communities you can lean on, that help you feel like you belong.​
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Depression
What is depression?
Depression is characterized by sad, empty, or irritable mood, along with other symptoms like loss of interest or pleasure; changes in appetite or weight; insomnia or excessive sleep; feeling restless, slow, fatigued, worthless, or guilty; loss of concentration; indecisiveness; and in some cases suicidal ideation. A depressive disorder is diagnosed when symptoms occur almost all day, nearly every day, for at least 2 weeks, and when they result in difficulty functioning in social, academic, or work environments.
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As your therapist, here are some ways we might treat symptoms of depression:​
Approach depression with acceptance, love, and genuine curiosity.
Use somatic and energetic techniques to differentiate who you are from the symptoms of depression you are currently experiencing.
Recognize somatic sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors associated with your depression.
Identify and gently challenge unhelpful patterns that contribute to depression, replacing them with new patterns that better serve your healing journey
With lovingkindness, move your body when you’d rather collapse, and still your body when you’d rather busy yourself.
Enter into relationship with your deeper pain, and learn what it needs from you/others in order to heal.
Identify what you value most, and find the courage to move towards your values instead of moving away from your fears.
Rate how depressed you are feeling at any given moment, and apply tools to help you relieve symptoms of depression.
Consider clinically proven lifestyle changes for depression, like regular exercise, balanced diet, sleep hygiene, and minimal substance use.
​Improve self-care and stress management routines through relaxation techniques, mindfulness or meditation practices, and the pursuit of old or new hobbies.
​Strengthen or build social support systems – relationships and communities you can lean on, that help you feel like you belong.
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Stress & Trauma
What is stress?
Stress is a physiological response to demanding, external factors. When these external factors are perceived as good, we call it "eustress." When these external factors are perceived as bad, we call it "distress." Stress can also be acute or chronic in nature, depending on whether or not external factors of stress resolve in a timely fashion. Symptoms of stress often look like symptoms of anxiety and/or depression.
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As your therapist, here are some ways we might treat symptoms of stress:
Increase awareness of sources and symptoms of stress.
Consider lifestyle changes for stress, like regular exercise, balanced diet, sleep hygiene, minimal substance use, and time management practices.
Identify and challenge unhelpful patterns that contribute to stress.
Explore stress management techniques, including mindfulness/meditation and somatic techniques that promote relaxation.
Solve complex problems together.
​Strengthen or build social support systems – relationships and communities you can lean on, that help you feel like you belong.
Set healthy boundaries with sources of stress.
Pursue self-care practices and hobbies.
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What is trauma?
Trauma involves psychologcal distress following exposure to a negative event. The traumatic event can be acute or chronic, single variable or complex, occurring during childhood or adulthood, something you experienced directly yourself or vicariously through someone else's traumatic experience. Symptoms of trauma also vary widely. Some trauma survivors display symptoms of anxiety. Others, depression. Anger is also common, as are dissociative symptoms like feeling disconnected, memory loss, and confusion regarding your identity and surroundings. Some people also experience flashbacks, nightmares, unexplained physical symptoms, and/or strained relationships. Sometimes trauma survivors experience shock and denial, wondering if what they've experienced counts as "trauma." Respectfully, I think that's an unhelpful question. Was it traumatic...for you? Is the energy of trauma here, now, when you think about it? That's what really matters.
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As your therapist, here are some ways we might treat symptoms of trauma:
Build a strong sense of who you really are, apart from the trauma you've experienced.
Introduce somatic and mindfulness tools for holding 2 places at once – who you are, and the pain you've endured.
Lightly, gently practice oscillating between these 2 places, noticing how they're different.
As you gain skills and strength, disempower the "monsters" inside, and embrace Trauma as Teacher.
Identify where the trauma lives in the body, its emotions, its thoughts, it's beliefs.
​Together, go deeper, bringing our light to the dark, old places.
Breathe, let the trauma move, feel, speak.
​Illuminate what the trauma needed then, and what it needs right now.
​Reclaim lost aspects of self, and honor what you need in order to find healing today.
​Build confidence in your capacity and courage to heal, with (and eventually without) my guidance.
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Grief
What is grief?
Grief is a natural part of life, not a disorder. Unfortunately, we live in a society that undervalues the processes and rituals of grief, leading many people to either ignore their sorrow or feel very alone in it. For this reason, it can be helpful to work the clay of grief with a therapist.
Francis Weller describes Five Gates of Grief, which remind us that grief takes many forms: ​
The First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose
The Second Gate: The Places That Have Not Known Love
The Third Gate: The Sorrows of the World
The Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive
The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief
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​Common symptoms of grief include emotions like sadness, loneliness, despair, anger, fear, anxiety, guilt, relief, and shame; feeling numb, exhausted, heavy, empty, disoriented, tense, preoccupied, or forgetful; dreams or altered perceptions; decreased sense of self or self-care; and changes in appetite, sleep, immune function, and meaning making.
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As your therapist, here are some ways we might tend to your grief:​
Normalize the many faces and timelines of grief.
Explore coping strategies, stress management techniques, self-care practices, and social support.
Express and validate how you’re feeling.
Observe personal and/or cultural grief rituals.
Search for meaning and purpose.
Gently challenge unhelpful thought patterns.
Solve problems that arise from loss.
Make plans for your future.
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