I specialize in working with highly sensitive adults and adolescents who may experience anxiety, overthinking, self-doubt, perfectionism, or feeling easily overwhelmed. Therapy can help you better understand your sensitivity, recognize the patterns that contribute to distress, and develop greater self-trust, confidence, and self-compassion.
Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) Therapy in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island
Understanding High Sensitivity
Being highly sensitive can shape how you experience emotions, relationships, stress, and your environment. You may notice that you process experiences deeply, feel easily overstimulated, are especially attuned to others, or need more time to recover from demanding situations.
You may be familiar with messages like:
- "grow thicker skin"
- "lighten up"
- "you're overthinking"
- "toughen up"
- "you need to let things go"
- "you're over-analyzing"
- "you're being dramatic or too emotional"
- "stop crying"
- "you're taking it too personally"
- "don't let it get to you so much"
Over time, these messages can contribute to self-doubt and make it difficult to trust your own experiences and needs.
The Highly Sensitive Personality trait is not a flaw or something that needs to be changed. It is a temperament trait.
Therapy for Highly Sensitive People
How do I know if I am a Highly Sensitive Person?
Highly Sensitive individuals make up about 15-20% of the population. If you're unsure if this describes you, you can begin by taking this quiz and continue reading to learn more.
Highly Sensitive People often have a rich inner life, deep empathy, and a heightened awareness of their surroundings. You may be especially attuned to other people’s emotions, subtle shifts in mood, and interpersonal dynamics.
As a highly sensitive person, you likely experience emotions deeply and need more time to process them. You might notice details that others overlook and find yourself closely attuned to facial expressions, tone of voice, and changes in the people or environment around you.
This sensitivity can also mean becoming overstimulated more easily. Loud noises, bright lights, crowds, strong smells, certain textures, or prolonged social interaction may feel particularly taxing, and you may need more quiet and downtime to recharge. Being the center of attention or encountering unexpected changes, even positive ones, can also feel uncomfortable or overwhelming.
Being a Highly Sensitive Person can shape how you experience and respond to the world around you.
Busy environments, frequent social interaction, constant communication, and limited downtime can sometimes lead to overstimulation. You may find that you need more quiet and time to yourself to process your experiences and feel restored.
Therapy for highly sensitive people can help you better understand the role sensitivity plays in your emotions, relationships, and everyday experiences. Our work may focus on recognizing your needs and boundaries, managing overstimulation, and building greater self-trust while honoring your innate strengths.
Highly Sensitive People often share strengths such as:
- Thoughtfulness and conscientiousness
- Deep intuition and perceptiveness
- Strong listening skills and an ability to be present with others
- Empathy and compassion
- Careful and reflective decision-making
- Keen awareness of subtleties in your environment
- A rich inner life and a tendency to be called an "old soul" from a young age
- A deep appreciation for art, nature, and meaningful experiences
High sensitivity is a temperament trait, not a mental health condition or something that needs to be overcome. Understanding your sensitivity can help you better recognize your needs and respond to them with greater awareness and self-compassion.
Therapy Approach for a Highly Sensitive Person
Highly Sensitive Persons can benefit greatly from psychotherapy. Research on sensory processing sensitivity suggests that highly sensitive people may be particularly responsive to positive and supportive experiences, including therapeutic interventions.
An integrative approach to psychotherapy can be especially helpful, allowing therapy to be tailored to your individual needs and experiences. In my work with highly sensitive people, I draw from a relational and psychodynamic framework, combining CBT, ACT, mindfulness, self-compassion, and psychoeducation about high sensitivity. Our work can deepen self-understanding, explore emotional and relational patterns, and help you better understand how your sensitivity influences your needs, relationships, and experiences.
How Therapy Can Help Highly Sensitive People
- Better understand your sensitivity. Explore how high sensitivity influences your emotions, relationships, needs, and experiences, and the role it has played throughout your life.
- Explore messages you have received about your sensitivity. Consider how earlier experiences and relationships may have influenced the way you see yourself and work through patterns of self-criticism or longstanding beliefs that no longer serve you.
- Recognize and build upon your strengths. Develop greater appreciation for the qualities associated with your sensitivity while strengthening self-compassion and self-trust.
- Develop strategies for navigating stress. Identify what supports you in managing stress, setting boundaries, and responding to your needs more effectively.
- Strengthen emotional regulation. Develop a greater capacity to understand, tolerate, and respond to difficult emotions without becoming consumed by them.
My Approach as a NYC HSP Therapist
Therapy for Highly Sensitive Persons offers a space to explore your experiences with curiosity, compassion, and a deeper understanding of high sensitivity. My approach is collaborative and individualized, with attention to the ways your sensitivity intersects with your relationships, emotions, and sense of self.
At Liz Yarock Psychotherapy, I integrate psychodynamic and relational therapy with CBT, ACT, mindfulness, and self-compassion. This allows us to explore longstanding patterns and experiences while also developing practical strategies that support you in your daily life.
As someone who personally understands and deeply respects high sensitivity, I recognize the nuances of navigating life as a highly sensitive person. Our work is focused on developing greater self-awareness and self-trust, understanding patterns that may be holding you back, and helping you feel more confident in your own needs and experiences.
Beginning Therapy
If you’re interested in exploring how high sensitivity may be affecting your relationships, emotions, or everyday experiences, therapy can provide a space to better understand yourself and develop greater confidence in navigating these experiences. I offer individual therapy for highly sensitive adults and adolescents in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
- Schedule a preliminary consultation with me here to learn more about working together.
- Learn more about Highly Sensitive People and women's mental health by reading more here.
Additional Therapy Services
At Liz Yarock Psychotherapy, I provide individual therapy for adults and adolescents. In addition to working with Highly Sensitive People, I specialize in anxiety counseling, life transitions, relationship therapy, and therapy for women's issues. My work is integrative and tailored to each person’s individual needs, experiences, and goals.
Schedule a Consultation
I am happy to offer a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation to help you gain a sense of who I am and my approach to therapy in order to determine if we will work well together.