Being deeply attuned to the world is not a flaw. It's a different way of being wired.
Dr. Christine Sparacino
Psychoanalytic Psychologist
I offer weekly and biweekly virtual sessions for adults of all ages in individual therapy, coaching & groups.
The cost is $230 per therapy session without insurance (along with a receipt for out-of-network reimbursement). Aetna and Blue Cross accepted for Arizona residents.
Let's begin with a free 15-minute consultation to discuss how we might work together. This initial conversation provides an opportunity for us to explore your goals for therapy and see if our approach aligns with what you're seeking.
Have you been told your whole life that you're "too sensitive"? Do you come home from social gatherings feeling completely drained, even when you enjoyed yourself? Do you notice the shift in a room's mood, the detail everyone else missed, the thing that wasn't said?
If so, you may be a highly sensitive person, or HSP. High sensitivity, known in research as sensory processing sensitivity, is an innate temperament trait found in roughly one in five people.
First identified by psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron, it describes a nervous system that processes experiences, emotions, and sensory input more deeply than most. It is not a disorder, and it is not something to fix.
I first learned that I was a highly sensitive person in 1999, when my therapist recommended The Highly Sensitive Person. Reading the book, all the shame I felt around my sensitivity began to melt away as I realized that nothing was wrong with me. My sensitivity was not a problem to be fixed, but a trait to be supported.
Every highly sensitive person is different, but the trait tends to show up in recognizable ways:
Deep processing: You think things through thoroughly and notice patterns and meanings others often miss.
Overstimulation: Loud environments, bright lights, crowds, or packed schedules leave you feeling overwhelmed and depleted.
Emotional depth and empathy: You feel emotions strongly, both your own and other people's, and often absorb the feelings of those around you.
Sensing subtleties: You pick up on small changes in tone, expression, and environment that seem invisible to everyone else.
Needing recovery time: After busy days or intense interactions, you need quiet and solitude to recharge.
Sensitivity to criticism: Harsh words land hard and stay with you longer than you'd like.
A rich inner life: You are reflective, imaginative, and moved deeply by art, music, and nature.
Overwhelm in conflict: Tension and discord affect you physically, and you may go out of your way to keep the peace.
If several of these feel like your everyday experience, you're not broken. You're wired for depth, and you're in the right place.
Many highly sensitive people spend years trying to toughen up, hide their reactions, or apologize for how deeply they feel. The world often treats sensitivity as a weakness to overcome. It isn't. The same nervous system that gets overwhelmed in a crowded room is the one that makes you perceptive, conscientious, creative, and deeply attuned to the people you love.
The goal of therapy is never to make you less sensitive. It's to help you stop fighting your sensitivity and start working with it: protecting your energy, setting boundaries without guilt, and embracing your sensitivity like the gift it is.
Your sensitivity is not a liability. It is your superpower. Therapy can help you appreciate this gift and learn how to harness it for your good and the good of the world. Working together, we can heal the shame you've felt about being sensitive and embrace it for the asset it is.
High sensitivity and depth-oriented therapy are a natural fit. HSPs process deeply, and psychoanalytic psychotherapy honors that depth rather than rushing past it. Together, we will look at what your sensitivity has meant across your life: the experiences that taught you to hide it, the relationships where it goes unappreciated, and the patterns of overwhelm, people-pleasing, or self-criticism that grew around it.
We will also work practically: managing overstimulation, recovering your energy, navigating relationships and work as a sensitive person, and building a life that fits your wiring instead of fighting it.
I know how it feels to open yourself up in therapy and be vulnerable. As we work together, I bring compassion and gentleness to the parts of you that have been misjudged in the past, offering a salve to deep wounds. We will journey together in a way that supports your most tender places.
Virtual sessions have a particular advantage for sensitive people: you can do this work from your own calm, familiar environment. Through PSYPACT licensing, I'm able to work with clients in 39 states.
No. High sensitivity is a normal, innate temperament trait, not a mental health condition. Researchers call it sensory processing sensitivity, and it appears in about 15 to 20 percent of the population. That said, living as a sensitive person in an insensitive world can contribute to anxiety, burnout, and self-doubt, and that is where therapy helps.
If the signs above feel familiar, there's a good chance you are. Dr. Elaine Aron's self-test is a helpful starting point, and we can explore it together in a consultation.
Most HSPs describe a feeling of instant recognition: a lifetime of experiences suddenly making sense.
That's not the goal, and honestly, you wouldn't want it to be. Your sensitivity is woven into your empathy, your perceptiveness, and your depth. Therapy helps you suffer less from the hard parts, the overwhelm, the absorbed emotions, the harsh inner voice, while keeping everything that makes sensitivity a strength.
Sensory processing sensitivity is the research term for the highly sensitive trait.
It describes a nervous system that processes sensory information and emotional experience more deeply than average.
It is genetic, found across many species, and represents a variation in temperament rather than a diagnosis.
About one in five people carry the trait, and many describe learning about it as one of the most validating discoveries of their lives.
Take action today and start taking steps towards a better future.
