Therapeutic Approach
After four decades of learning to work with my emotional and sensory sensitivities, I have found dozens of tools to aid me in living my most authentic life in a grounded, emotionally regulated way. In working with clients with similar sensitivities, I have incorporated a combination of education, counselling, traditional Occupational Therapy, and transpersonal psychotherapy to provide a four-step process of healing and transformation. While I have outlined the four steps below linearly, the process is a little more fluid.
Step 1: Emotional Regulation
The Problem:
Highly Sensitive People experience intense emotions that are often overwhelming. They also tend to be extremely empathic people who “pick up” the emotions of others (researchers refer to this as “emotion contagion”). This can sometimes make it difficult to discern whether emotions belong to ourselves or someone else. This confusion, combined with the intensity of emotions from both self and others, can lead to overstimulation, anxiety and depression. For some, it can lead to addictive behaviours, substance use, or eating disorders.
The Solution:
The first step of our work will be developing emotional literacy — the ability to notice and name emotions, discern between the emotions of yourself and others, and then find productive and skillful ways of working with them. For this step, we will use a framework called Dynamic Emotional Integration® which teaches that emotions are experienced like another sense (such as taste, smell, or touch) that provides information about our situation and environment. When we learn to work with emotions in this way, we will be better able to react skillfully. Maladaptive coping behaviours, such as addictions, become less necessary and gradually start to fall away.
“All emotions can be damaging if you imprison them, just as all emotions can be healing when you know how to work with them honourably.”
— Karla McLaren, Author of The Language of Emotions
Step 2: Communicating Needs & Boundaries
The Problem:
Because Highly Sensitive People tend to be empathic and care deeply for the needs of others, we tend to have difficulty expressing our own needs and setting boundaries in relationships. Since hurting others often feels like hurting ourselves (because we feel others’ pain), it can be easy to give in to their needs or sideline our own needs.
The Solution:
The second step of our work will be learning to identify and kindly communicate your needs to others. This will encourage you to say no to unsustainable demands on your time and energy. And it will help you to refrain from doing the emotional labour of others. For this step, we will again draw on the work of Karla McLaren and Dynamic Emotional Integration®, as well as the work of Nedra Glover Tawwab. We will also employ techniques of communication that draw from Non-Violent Communication and Non-Defensive Communication.
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”
— Prentis Hemphill
Step 3: Clarifying Priorities & Focusing
The Problem:
Because Highly Sensitive People are so often concerned about the feelings and needs of others, they often have difficulty discerning what is truly important to them. This can lead to not living in alignment with one’s values or not engaging with others in fulfilling or meaningful ways. Even when a Highly Sensitive Person knows what they want, they often have difficulty moving towards that goal because they find themselves regularly pulled off track by the needs and desires of others.
The Solution:
The third step of our work will be identifying your priorities through clarification of your values and creative exercises. We will use the emotional skills we developed in step one to help you clarify your desires and goals. We will then use habit trackers, priority-setting strategies and task-management tools to help you stay on track. For this step, we will draw on Dynamic Emotional Integration® to identify your desires, and then use tools from productivity masters like Franklin Covey, James Clear and Charlie Gilkey to keep you on course as you work towards your goals.
“In this great orchestra of creation of which we’re all a part, no one can play your instrument the way you do.”
— Charlie Gilkey, Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done
Step 4: Building Leadership & Leveraging Gifts
The Problem:
Because Highly Sensitive People have are often told by outsiders that something is wrong with them, (“stop being so sensitive!”, “you’re over-reacting”, “calm down!”), it is common to experience low self-esteem. Being highly sensitive can also make HSPs averse to risk-taking and leadership positions that make us vulnerable to attack. However, Highly Sensitive People, by virtue of being empathic and being able to see things from multiple perspectives, are ideal people to lead organizations and movements. Highly Sensitive People often have connections to art, music, literature and the natural world and are ideally suited to moving humanity forward in ways that can bring about more peace, connection and balance.
The Solution:
In many ways, all the above steps will lead here naturally by equipping you to deal with intense emotions, helping you set supportive boundaries, clarifying your goals, and giving you the tools to prioritize what is important to you. In this final phase, we work on leveraging your sensitivity as a kind of “superpower” to help you tap into the universal consciousness (chi, lifeforce, source, God, metaphysics - whatever word resonates for you) and help you play your part in healing our relationship with each other and with the earth. In this stage of our work, we will draw on the wisdom of universal consciousness, ceremony, animism, shamanism, plant medicine, and modern-day mystics to support you in aligning your actions with your highest purpose.
“All that we are is story. From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here; you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time…”
— Richard Wagamese
Want to chat?
If my approach appeals to you, I invite you to apply for a no-cost 15-minute session to see if we are a good fit to work together. Have questions first? Check out my FAQ page.