Online across California · In person in North Lake TahoeTherapy for HSP (Highly Sensitive People)
You feel everything, deeply and all at once, and you've spent a lot of energy managing how much of it shows. This is therapy that treats your sensitivity as something real to work with, not a flaw to fix.
Nurture your nature ·
Nurture your nature ·
Who it's forHighly sensitive adults, often neurodivergent too, who feel deeply and wear out fast in a loud, fast world.
What it isTherapy that works with sensitivity as a trait: regulation, boundaries, and a nervous system that feels everything. Not a cure for being sensitive.
WhereOnline across California, in person in North Lake Tahoe.
How to startA free 15-minute consultation.
If this is you
High sensitivity, or being an HSP, isn't fragility. It's a nervous system that takes in more, feels it more deeply, and needs more time to come back down. Roughly one in five people are wired this way. It has real gifts and a real cost.
You pick up the mood in a room before anyone says a word, and you carry it home with you.
Noise, light, and crowds drain you faster than you can explain to people who don't feel it.
You feel things so intensely that you've learned to shrink them so others stay comfortable.
You need real recovery time after socializing, and you've been called dramatic for it.
Other people's pain lands in your body as if it were your own.
You've heard "you're too sensitive" so often you started treating it as a flaw.
It was never too much. Sensitivity is a trait, not a defect, and the goal isn't to feel less. It's to stop paying so much to feel as deeply as you do.
Sensitive, and often neurodivergent
High sensitivity, ADHD, and autism overlap far more than the tidy categories suggest. Many highly sensitive people are also AuDHD, and the traits tangle together: deep processing, easy overwhelm, strong reactions, a real need for space and recovery.
You don't have to sort out which label is which to get support here. We work with how you're actually wired. And if ADHD is part of your picture, my ADHD work sits right alongside this.
The goal was never to feel less.
How the work goes
I draw on somatic therapy, nature-based work, and depth, and much of my practice is with sensitive and neurodivergent adults. In practice, that looks like this.
01We don't make you less sensitive.
The goal isn't a thicker skin. It's a nervous system that can feel everything without getting flooded, and a life arranged so your sensitivity costs you less than it does now.
02We work with the nervous system.
We build in the downshift your system actually needs and practice returning to baseline, instead of bracing through overwhelm until you crash.
03We work on boundaries that fit.
So much sensitive burnout comes from absorbing what was never yours to carry. We work on noticing where you end and other people begin, and saying no before you're already past empty.
Who this is for
High sensitivity isn't a diagnosis, it's a trait, so there's nothing to test for and nothing wrong with you to name. We just work with how you're actually built. If you're not sure where to start, individual therapy is a fine front door.
I work full fee and out of network, and provide superbills you can submit to your insurance for possible reimbursement. A sliding scale is available based on need. Sessions are online across California, or in person in North Lake Tahoe.
Work with AustinHi, I'm Austin.
I'm a licensed therapist for adults with ADHD, OCD, and high sensitivity, especially where they overlap. I use somatic therapy, EMDR, and ecotherapy for the moments when understanding yourself isn't enough to change how life feels day to day. I believe healing happens in connection: with yourself, with others, and with the land.
Austin Sherman, LMFT · CA license #146132 · MA, California Institute of Integral Studies · Bilingual in English and Spanish
Questions about high sensitivity
-
If you process things deeply, feel emotions strongly, notice subtle details others miss, and get overwhelmed by too much input, you may be. High sensitivity is a well-documented trait, not a disorder, that fits roughly one in five people. There's no test to pass, and you don't need one to start working with it.
-
Not exactly, though they overlap a lot. High sensitivity is a trait; ADHD and autism are forms of neurodivergence. Plenty of highly sensitive people are also neurodivergent, and the experiences blur together. Here, the label matters less than working with your day to day experience.
-
I'm an out-of-network provider and full fee. I provide superbills you can submit to your insurance for possible reimbursement, and I offer a sliding scale based on need and availability.
-
Yes. Most of my clients meet online across California. In-person sessions are available in North Lake Tahoe.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
You were never too much.
If you're tired of apologizing for how deeply you feel, let's talk. You don't have to explain it perfectly.
NewsletterKeep in touch
A few times a year I send a short email about new workshops, groups, and seasonal retreats, with the occasional note on slowing down and living with a mind that runs fast and feels everything.