Therapy for Highly Sensitive and Emotional Persons
Living in the Extreme
You may live with intense emotional experiences, sometimes it feels amazing to experience emotions so deeply – yet at other times it causes immense physical and emotional pain. Your experience may feel debilitating at times, maybe more often than not. You have been told you are “overreacting” or “being dramatic.” You may feel different from others or not have direction in your own life. You may have learned not to trust your gut response or inner voice. Relationships are painful yet you desire them so greatly. You are stuck in a life full of chaos.
Are you tired of this suffering? If I threw you a life raft, do you feel ready to grab ahold and swim against the current with me?
I am familiar with that sense of stuckness - of treading through thick water, wanting to breathe yet not having the chance to catch your breath.
Skills-Based Therapy
I provide DBT-informed, skills-based individual therapy to help you learn to navigate your emotional experiences, improve communication and relationship skills, increase self-acceptance, and decrease the presence of extremes in your life. Through our DBT-informed therapy sessions, we will work towards creating and maintaining the life and relationships you see as worth living for. We achieve this by targeting the behavior that keeps you stuck in suffering, learning and applying practical skills, and increasing new, value-directed behaviors that take you closer to your life goals.
If after completing an assessment it appears you may need a higher, or more intensive, level of care than I am able to provide through my practice, I will openly communicate the need and provide you with a list of appropriate referrals.
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Mindfulness
Mindfulness helps you tune in to the present moment in a calm manner and identify what you need in this moment to navigate skillfully. Increasing mindfulness can reduce suffering by increasing your ability to enjoy moment to moment life experiences.
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Emotion Regulation
Developing emotion regulation skills can help you decrease the intensity of your emotional experience and develop the ability to change extreme thinking. You will learn skills to help you reduce your vulnerability to experiencing intense emotions and increase the presence of positive and desired emotions.
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Distress Tolerance
Distress tolerance skills help you survive crisis situations without engaging in life interfering and shame-inducing behaviors which may make the situation harder to deal with. You will learn skills to manage and soothe extreme emotions that arise so that you do not get stuck in chaos or feelings of overwhelm.
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Interpersonal Effectiveness
You will learn how to communicate more clearly and effectively, how to make friends and end destructive relationships, as well as identifying your needs and setting appropriate boundaries.