SPECIALTY AREA
high sensitivity
Therapy for people who feel things deeply.
Online therapy for highly sensitive people (HSPs) and empaths in California.
SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATIONRecognizing yourself
Does any of this sound familiar?
- You become overwhelmed more easily than you think you “should.”
- Noise, crowds, interruptions, social demands, conflict, competing tasks, or simply too much happening at once can leave you depleted.
- You think deeply about things and sometimes have difficulty turning your mind off.
- Criticism, rejection, conflict, or unpredictability can stay with you long after the situation has passed.
- You appear competent and composed while privately feeling anxious, scattered, exhausted, or uncertain.
- You need solitude, structure, predictability, or downtime but judge yourself for needing it.
You may have spent years believing that you were too sensitive, too intense, too emotional, too distracted, too anxious, too rigid, too needy, too much—or somehow not enough.
Therapy offers another possibility: becoming curious about the way you process the world, the experiences that shaped you, and what you actually need in order to thrive.
Understanding high sensitivity
What is a Highly Sensitive Person?
You may have heard the term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) before, or this may be the first time you are coming across it.
Being highly sensitive means that your nervous system takes in and processes experience more deeply than most. The term comes from psychologist Elaine Aron, whose research suggests that roughly 15 to 20 percent of people are born with this trait.
It is not a disorder, and it is not a sign that something went wrong. It is a way of being in the world, one that comes with real gifts and real needs.
Could you be highly sensitive?
Check anything that feels true for you.
You checked of 12.
This is not a diagnosis. If many of these feel familiar, you may be highly sensitive, and it can help to know there is a name for the way you experience the world.
Sensitivity and neurodivergence
A Brain That Works Differently
Being highly sensitive is not simply a personality style. It reflects a real difference in how your brain works. Brain imaging research has found that highly sensitive people show more activity in areas linked to awareness, empathy and the deep processing of information.1 Your brain is taking in more, and doing more with what it takes in.
This is one reason high sensitivity is increasingly understood as a form of neurodivergence. It also often overlaps with ADHD, autism and AuDHD. Sensory overwhelm, intense emotion, a need for recovery time and the feeling of being out of step with the people around you can show up in all of them, and it can be hard to know where one ends and another begins.
Many sensitive people arrive in therapy having been misunderstood, by others and sometimes by previous therapists: called anxious when they were overstimulated, or “too much” when they were feeling deeply. I bring more than 15 years of experience and a deep understanding of how sensitive and neurodivergent minds work. Together, we can tease apart what belongs to your temperament, what belongs to your history, and what may reflect ADHD or autism, so you can understand yourself more clearly and get support that actually fits.
1 Acevedo, B. P., Aron, E. N., Aron, A., Sangster, M.-D., Collins, N., & Brown, L. L. (2014). The highly sensitive brain: An fMRI study of sensory processing sensitivity and response to others’ emotions. Brain and Behavior, 4(4), 580–594. View study
Sensitivity and anxiety
High Sensitivity and Anxiety Often Overlap—But They Are Not the Same Thing
Many highly sensitive people also struggle with anxiety.
If you grew up needing to read the room, anticipate someone’s mood, minimize your own needs, perform well, avoid mistakes, keep the peace, or maintain connection with an inconsistent caregiver, sensitivity may become intertwined with anxiety, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, and difficulty trusting yourself.
Part of therapy may involve learning to distinguish:
- What is sensitivity?
- What is anxiety?
- What belongs to your history?
- What reflects the way you naturally process the world?
- And what is actually happening right now?
Those distinctions can create substantially more freedom.
HSP-informed therapy
Working With an HSP-Informed Therapist
Many highly sensitive people have spent years being told, in one way or another, that their sensitivity is the problem.
You may have learned to override yourself: tolerating environments that exhaust you, pushing through sensory or emotional overload, and saying yes when something inside you is saying no.
As an HSP-informed therapist, I understand high sensitivity as a temperament, not a symptom. I won’t pathologize the way you are wired or ask you to become less of who you are.
Instead, we work with your sensitivity, so that you can function better in your daily life, move through overwhelm and change with more steadiness, and make more room for your gifts.
What we work on
Together, we can work on
Your nervous system
Navigating overwhelm and moving through transitions with more ease.
Your relationships
Setting boundaries and letting go of people-pleasing.
Yourself
Releasing shame and perfectionism, and reconnecting with your creativity.
Questions
FAQs
Will therapy make me less sensitive?
No. The goal is not to turn down your sensitivity. It is to help you understand it, care for it, and live in a way that lets it be a strength rather than a constant source of overwhelm.
Do I need to identify as an HSP to work with you?
No. Many people recognize the experiences described on this page without identifying with a particular label.
You do not need to arrive knowing exactly why you experience the world the way you do. That curiosity can be part of the work.
Do you take insurance?
I am an out-of-network provider. Many PPO plans reimburse part of the cost of therapy, and I partner with Thrizer and Reimbursify to make that process easier. You can read more on my Psychotherapy page.
How do I get started?
You can reach me through my contact page to schedule a free consultation call. We will talk about what is bringing you in and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Online therapy in California
Online Therapy for HSPs and Empaths in California
My practice is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and is fully virtual. I provide online psychotherapy to adults throughout California.
You don’t need to arrive with a perfect explanation for why you experience the world the way you do.
We can begin there.
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