Therapy for Highly Sensitive People in Tampa, FL
You're not too much. Your nervous system just runs deeper than most.
In person in Tampa · Virtual throughout Florida and vermont
You’ve probably heard it your whole life. Too sensitive. Too intense. Too much.
Maybe you've heard it so many times you started saying it about yourself before anyone else could..
Here's what's actually going on: your nervous system processes the world more deeply than most people's. The tone shift nobody else caught. The thing left unsaid in the room. The hum of the lights, the noise of a crowded restaurant, the weight of someone else's bad day - you take in more, and you take it in harder. That's not a flaw in you. It's a different operating system, and it works fine until it's been running with zero breaks for years.
does this sound like you?
Replaying a conversation for days, picking apart every word you said
Absorbing other people's moods and stress like they're your own
Needing more downtime than the people around you (and feeling guilty about it)
Getting wrecked by environments that don't seem to bother anyone else: bright lights, group chats, open offices, loud restaurants
Saying yes when every part of you means no
An inner critic that runs nonstop, telling you you're too much and not enough at the same time
Avoiding conflict like it's a hot stove, even when something actually matters to you
Feeling like everyone else got the instruction manual and you got skipped
If even half of this sounds familiar, you're not imagining it (and you're definitely not the only one).
Sensitivity isn’t the problem. Never getting a break from it is.
Accepting new clients · Tampa in-person & virtual throughout Florida & Vermont
A lot of highly sensitive folks spend years trying to override themselves — push through the overstimulation, ignore the gut feeling, force themselves to function like everyone else seems to be doing without trying. That can work for a while. Until it stops working, and what's left is chronic anxiety, a self-critic with a megaphone, exhaustion that sleep doesn't touch, and a slow drift away from what you actually want — because you've spent so long managing everyone else's reactions you lost track of your own.
Therapy here isn't about making you less sensitive. It's about getting your nervous system some actual relief, so the depth that's always been part of you can stop running on survival mode.
Here’s what we’ll do together
What Therapy for Highly Sensitive People in Tampa Looks Like
This isn't about turning your sensitivity off. It's about helping your nervous system finally get a break - so the depth that's always been part of you stops running on survival mode.
Here’s how we work together
✔ Understanding what your nervous system is actually doing
why overstimulation happens, why "just calm down" never works, and what your body needs instead
✔ Telling intuition apart from anxiety
harder than it sounds, and genuinely useful once you can do it on the fly
✔ Untangling people-pleasing from real care
so saying no doesn't feel like betraying someone
✔ Working with the inner critic instead of arguing with it
using IFS to understand what that part is actually trying to protect you from
✔ Building boundaries that don't need a TED talk to justify
and don't come with three days of guilt afterward
✔ Designing a life that works with how you're wired
your schedule, your relationships, your environment — instead of constantly fighting against it
What We Don’t Do Here
We're not trying to make you less sensitive, tougher, or more "normal." We're not handing you generic coping tips you've already tried and ditched. And we're not going to act like your depth is the problem - it never was. The overwhelm was happening because nobody ever showed you how to work with it.
We also bring in somatic work and Brainspotting when it fits, because a lot of this lives in the body, not just in your thoughts.
Walk into an overstimulating situation with an actual plan instead of just bracing for it
Make a decision without running twelve scenarios first
Say no without writing a paragraph to justify it
Notice the inner critic without automatically believing it
Feel recharged by your own company instead of guilty for needing it
Trust your gut again
Imagine being able to:
A little about me
I've spent most of my life being the person who notices everything - the tone shift, the thing left unsaid, the mood in the room before anyone says a word out loud. For a long time, I thought that meant something was wrong with me. Too sensitive, too much, too in my own head.
It took a long time to understand that my nervous system wasn't broken - it was just taking in more than most people's, with zero instructions on how to handle that. I spent years pushing through overstimulation, managing everyone else's feelings before my own, and assuming exhaustion was just the cost of being a person. It's not. It's the cost of doing that without support.
That's a lot of why I do this work the way I do it. I'm not trying to make you less sensitive or teach you to "toughen up." I want to help you understand what your system actually needs, so the depth that's always been part of you stops feeling like something you have to survive.
If you've spent your whole life feeling like everyone else got the manual and you didn't - I'd love to talk.
- Keri Baker, LCSW · Therapist for Highly Sensitive People | Tampa, FL
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A highly sensitive person (HSP) has a nervous system that processes sensory, emotional, and social information more deeply than average. It's estimated 15-20% of people are wired this way. It's not a diagnosis - it's a trait, sometimes called sensory processing sensitivity.
Sensitivity is not a diagnosis or disorder. It’s a temperament and a way of being that deserves understanding and care.
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No, though they can look similar from the outside and sometimes overlap. HSPs are typically highly attuned to social cues and other people's emotions, while autism and ADHD involve different patterns around sensory processing, attention, and social communication. Empaths describe absorbing others' emotions even more directly. If you're not sure which fits, that's a great thing to bring into a first session rather than figure out alone.
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No, but they often show up together. High sensitivity is a trait you're born with. Anxiety is something that can build on top of it, especially after years of pushing through overstimulation without support. Therapy helps sort out which is which, and treats them differently.
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Not at all. Most people I work with have never used the label for themselves - they just know they overthink everything, feel things intensely, get overwhelmed easily, or have spent their whole life feeling like "too much" for the room.
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It's slower-paced and trauma-informed on purpose. We focus on understanding your nervous system, working with the parts of you that overthink or self-criticize (often using Internal Family Systems), and building tools that actually fit how you function - not generic advice to "just relax."
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Both. I see clients in person at my Tampa office and virtually anywhere in Florida or Vermont - same depth of work either way.
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Because your nervous system is taking in more input than most people's, constantly - sound, light, other people's emotions, your own internal monitoring. That's a lot of data to process all day, even when nothing dramatic is happening. The exhaustion isn't weakness; it's the cost of depth without recovery time.
Questions?
FAQs
Ready when you are
You don't have to keep white-knuckling your way through a world that wasn't built for how you process it. Let's figure out what actually fits.
Free 15-minute consultation, zero pressure.
Accepting new clients · Tampa in-person & virtual throughout Florida & Vermont
Therapy for Highly Sensitive People in Tampa, FL
Services are also offered virtually throughout Florida and Vermont