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1731 – 29th Street SW, Calgary AB T3C 1M6 | (403) 402-8222
How many times have you been told you are “too much”?
How many times have you been told you are “too much”?
Do you lie awake replaying what went wrong, wondering why you can’t be better?
Do your emotions feel like they control you?
Do you sometimes feel the weight of the world, and find it all too heartbreaking to handle?
Understanding High Sensitivity
Understanding High Sensitivity
Highly sensitive people are often described as being too emotional, dramatic, or sensitive. They’re told they overreact, overthink, and overfeel. The truth is, highly sensitive people process emotions more deeply and notice subtleties others might miss. You might sense who’s feeling left out at school lunch, notice clutter or lighting in a room, or instantly pick up on the emotional tone of a space. This heightened awareness comes with incredible empathy, but also emotional exhaustion. Feeling so much, so often, can leave you drained by the end of a typical day.
Many highly sensitive people secretly think, “If I could just feel less, I’d be normal.” But high sensitivity isn’t a flaw. It can be a superpower when you learn how to work with it.
High Sensitivity Is Not a Disorder
Being highly sensitive is a temperament, not a diagnosis. About 15–20% of people are highly sensitive, and research shows it’s evenly distributed across genders. Sensitivity exists on a spectrum; it looks and feels different for everyone.
Since the trait was first studied in the 1990s, awareness has grown, but many people (and even therapists) still misunderstand it. Western culture often focuses on “fixing” what feels hard, rather than understanding it. But high sensitivity is not something to fix; it’s a natural, purposeful part of human variation.
In fact, research suggests that having highly sensitive people among us provides an evolutionary advantage. Your brain isn’t defective — it’s designed to process the world more deeply.
How Therapy Can Help
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy can help you recognize the strengths of your sensitive brain and learn skills to manage its challenges. Many clients describe therapy as the first place they have ever felt truly validated.
Rather than seeing yourself as “too much,” therapy helps you understand your brain as a finely tuned, highly attuned system — one that simply needs care and skillful management. Without awareness and acknowledgement, being highly sensitive in a non-sensitive world can contribute to feelings of depression, anxiety, overwhelm and exhaustion. Therapy not only provides you validation and targeted skills for your highly sensitive brain, it can also allow you to discover the gifts of high sensitivity and learn to navigate the world with confidence and self-compassion.
Our approach focuses on teaching concrete skills and strategies that help highly sensitive people feel capable and grounded in their emotional world.
Learn to love and work with your highly sensitive brain
In session, you’ll learn:
The science behind high sensitivity and how it impacts emotional regulation.
How chronic emotional overwhelm develops and how to interrupt that cycle.
The strengths and evolutionary purpose of sensitivity — why the world needs people like you.
Practical DBT-based skills in mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
We work from a nonjudgmental, strengths-based perspective grounded in the belief that everyone is doing the best they can. Insight and awareness are essential, but they’re most powerful when paired with behavioral change.
Each session includes concrete strategies to try between sessions, so we can refine what works best for you and help you feel genuine progress.
A New Way to See Yourself
When clients begin viewing themselves as highly sensitive rather than weak or flawed, something profound shifts. Shame softens, self-criticism fades, and new possibilities open up. It becomes possible to manage your emotions and live authentically — not in spite of your sensitivity, but because of it.
About Mabel
About Mabel
Mabel has specialized in working with highly sensitive people for over a decade and continues to stay current with emerging research in this field. She has noticed the difference addressing high sensitivity makes when working with HSP clients experiencing mental health challenges. She is a passionate advocate for acknowledging this factor early in therapy and targeting her therapeutic approach accordingly.
She discovered her own high sensitivity in her thirties and is now raising two highly sensitive children, giving her both professional and personal insight into this unique experience.
Common Questions
Common Questions
If it’s not a diagnosis, do I need therapy for it?
Therapy isn’t only for mental illness — it’s also for self-understanding and prevention. Because highly sensitive people are more prone to anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, therapy can be a powerful way to learn how to manage emotions before they lead to burnout or illness.
If this is part of who I am, am I expected to change my personality?
Absolutely not. Being highly sensitive is not something to change and we wouldn’t want you to. Therapy helps you understand your brain, identify what it needs, and build strategies to thrive in a world that isn’t always built for sensitivity.
How do I know if I’m highly sensitive?
We’ll explore this together in session, but you can start by taking the short self-test created by Dr. Elaine Aron, the pioneer in HSP research: Take the HSP Test.
You Can Thrive as a Highly Sensitive Person
You Can Thrive as a Highly Sensitive Person
If this resonates with you, we invite you to book a free 15-minute consultation to explore whether this approach feels like the right fit. You can also book directly, or fill out our Connect With Us form and we’ll be happy to reach out.
Book a free 15-minute phone consultation to see if working together feels like a good fit. Therapy for Highly Sensitive People is available in Calgary and online across Alberta & Saskatchewan.
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