Introduction to Working with the Highly Sensitive Client: Considerations for Therapy
IN THIS DYNAMIC AND INSIGHTFUL WORKSHOP, PSYCHOLOGISTS RACHEL AND AOIFE WILL GUIDE PARTICIPANTS THROUGH THE ESSENTIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR WORKING WITH HIGHLY SENSITIVE CLIENTS.
Rooted in research on sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), this workshop will provide therapists and psychologists with a deeper understanding of the unique needs, strengths, and challenges of clients with a highly sensitive temperament.
Participants will learn how to identify traits of high sensitivity and explore its impact on emotional regulation, sensory processing, and interpersonal relationships. Through evidence-based techniques, the workshop will offer practical strategies for adapting therapeutic approaches to create a supportive environment for these clients, fostering trust, reducing overwhelm, and enhancing therapeutic outcomes.
What Participants Will Learn:
The Science of Sensory Processing Sensitivity
Understand the biological and psychological basis of high sensitivity, including its prevalence and how it manifests in clients.
Key Characteristics of Highly Sensitive Clients
Learn how to recognize the core traits of sensitivity—heightened emotional reactivity, empathy, deep processing, and sensory sensitivity—and how they affect therapy dynamics.
Adapting Therapeutic Approaches
Discover how to tailor therapy to meet the needs of highly sensitive clients, including pacing sessions, adjusting language, and providing sensory-friendly environments.
Emotional Regulation and Co-regulation
Learn techniques to support emotional regulation and how co-regulation can enhance therapeutic relationships for highly sensitive individuals.
Creating a Safe Therapeutic Space
Understand the importance of building a calm, non-overstimulating, and predictable space that promotes safety and trust for highly sensitive clients.
Navigating Challenges
Explore common challenges, such as overstimulation, avoidance, and intense emotional reactions, and how to address them in a compassionate and effective way.
Practical Tools for Working with Highly Sensitive Clients
Gain practical skills for managing heightened emotional states, setting boundaries, and enhancing self-awareness in clients.
THIS WORKSHOP IS PERFECT FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS, THERAPISTS, AND COUNSELLORS WHO WANT TO DEEPEN THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF HIGHLY SENSITIVE CLIENTS AND REFINE THEIR THERAPEUTIC APPROACH TO SUPPORT EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING IN THIS UNIQUE POPULATION.
Whether you’re a seasoned clinician or just starting out, you’ll leave with the tools and confidence to effectively work with the highly sensitive client.
The Workshop Facilitators
AOIFE DURCAN
Dr. Aoife Durcan is a Chartered Senior Counselling Psychologist, supervisor-trainer, and specialist on high sensitivity in children, teenagers, and adults. She has dedicated her career to supporting individuals and families to navigate the deep feelings, empathy, and emotional intensity that come with sensitivity, helping them harness its unique strengths.
Aoife works with children, adolescents, and adults in both clinical and educational settings. She is Clinical Lead for a psychology group within a mental health hospital, where she works as part of a wider multidisciplinary team supporting people through complex emotional and psychological challenges. She also provides training to medical and psychology practitioners internationally.
Author of Your Highly Sensitive Child (Gill Books), Aoife combines her clinical expertise with lived insight as a highly sensitive person herself. She is known for her warm, family-centred approach and is a sought-after international speaker on sensitivity, parenting, and mental health, frequently appearing in the media.
RACHEL SAMSON
Rachel Samson, M.Psych (Clin), is an Australian clinical psychologist, author, lecturer, and speaker known for relationships and parenting expertise. With 15 years’ clinical experience, she supports highly sensitive children, adults, and families, and shares evidence-based guidance as @australianpsychologist.
Her practice is neurodiversity-affirming, developmental, and relationship-focused, applying attachment and temperament science. She trained in attachment assessment with Alan Sroufe and Elizabeth Carlson (Minnesota), in maternal sensitivity with Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg (Cambridge), and in the NDC “Possums” approach to infant sleep and cry-fuss.
Rachel holds advanced international certification in Schema Therapy (trainer-supervisor; ISST) and co-developed an expanded Schema Therapy model for highly sensitive people with Dr Jeffrey Young and Dr George Lockwood. She is co-author of Beyond Difficult with Dr Jessie Stern (Affirm Press/Simon & Schuster).