IFS Therapy for Highly Sensitive People (HSP)
You often feel like the world is too much to handle and feel drained by busy environments or prolonged social interactions.
You have deep empathy for people and animals and get easily overwhelmed by suffering in the world.
You have a rich inner life and experience a strong emotional reaction to art, music, or nature.
You need time to withdraw and recover for days or weeks after being “out in the world”.
If you recognise yourself in these descriptions, you’re not alone. You may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) who experiences life more intensely due to your innate depth of processing. HSP is not an official diagnosis, but depending on who you ask, it is defined either as a personality trait or a type of neurodivergence.
High sensitivity involves more than just strong emotions—it also means experiencing sights, sounds, and feelings more intensely than others. This deep perception allows you to connect profoundly but can also make typical situations feel overwhelming.
High sensitivity can show up together with being autistic, an ADHDer or gifted. For HSPs who are also neurodivergent in other ways, the world's intensity can be even more challenging to navigate due to additional sensory, cognitive, and emotional layers.
The experiences of Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) can be understood through the DOES acronym, which represents the four key characteristics of high sensitivity:
Depth of Processing
HSPs tend to process information more deeply than others. This means you might spend more time reflecting on experiences, considering different perspectives, and making connections between ideas. While this depth of thought can lead to profound insights and creativity, it can also contribute to overthinking and mental exhaustion.
Overstimulation
Because you process so much information at once, it’s easy to become overstimulated, especially in busy or chaotic environments. The constant influx of sensory input such as noise and noticing other people’s emotions can lead to feeling overwhelmed or drained.
Emotional Responsiveness and Empathy
HSPs often experience emotions more intensely and have a heightened ability to empathise with others. You might find that you deeply feel the joys and sorrows of those around you. You might also have trouble dealing with your own emotions, especially when you’re absorbing the feelings of others.
Sensitivity to Subtleties
Your heightened awareness means you notice things that others might miss, such as subtle changes in your environment or the mood of a room. This sensitivity can make you more susceptible to feeling overwhelmed by sensory input.
How IFS Therapy Can Help
I have found Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy to be a great approach for HSPs. IFS allows you to go deep and explore and understand the various parts of your psyche. Being highly sensitive is not a part itself, but in a highly sensitive system, our parts often develop strategies to manage and deal with with being an HSP and can also carry trauma related to past overwhelming experiences.
As a therapist who specialises in working with HSPs, I bring understanding and respect for your experiences from my own life as an HSP. Together we’ll get to know and work with your parts, so that you will be able to navigate the challenges of being highly sensitive or otherwise neurodivergent.
With IFS, you can:
Find new ways to handle overwhelm and anxiety: Get to know the parts of you that try to manage anxiety and overwhelm, and find new ways to deal with challenging emotions with more calm and confidence.
Enhance your self-worth and set boundaries: Connect with a calm, confident and compassionate place inside you, from where you can set boundaries and prioritise your needs without guilt or fear of rejection.
Heal from past trauma: Address and process any unresolved trauma that is impacting you, helping you feel more secure and in your daily life.
Use your sensitivity for deeper connection: Use your natural insight to build more meaningful relationships and create a greater sense of purpose and fulfilment in your life.
My practice is dedicated to supporting highly sensitive individuals, including those who are neurodivergent in other areas such as being autistic, ADHDer, or gifted.
It’s possible to live a meaningful life that fully honors and aligns with your sensitivity.
FAQs
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Of course! Many of my clients come to me feeling unsure whether they are HSP. You may also feel like not all the HSP traits describe you and that's okay.
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Absolutely. Not all my clients identify as HSP, and many are autistics or ADHDers. There are many experiences, such as not feeling understood, trying to change yourself to fit in, and being criticised or bullied for being different that are often shared.
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We typically start by talking about how you've been feeling or whether there's anything that's happened since we last saw each other that you'd like to bring into therapy.
From there, we might do some insight work, which involves closing your eyes (if that feels comfortable for you), going inward, and connecting with different parts of you.
Sessions are often a mix of regular conversation and direct connection with your parts. How much time we spend on each depends on what feels most comfortable and useful to you.
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This depends on your goals, how far along you are in your healing journey, and your own unique life experiences. Most clients I work with are in therapy for at least 6 months. That said, you can always end the therapy when you feel like it’s time.
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Fill out the Contact Form. Share with me a little bit about your challenges and what you are hoping to experience in therapy. I'll then contact you to schedule a free consultation.
During the consultation, we'll talk more about the issues you'd like to work on and what kind of changes you'd like to see. I’ll tell you more about the type of therapy I do (IFS) and you can ask me any questions you have.
If we feel like we'd be a good fit to work together, we'll decide how we want to move forward with our work together.
