Lior Schonfeld. Clinical psychologist.

A. Sensitive women and treatment

Many times a. Sensitive women will come to therapy, sometimes out of a desire to grow and develop and sometimes out of distress and a feeling that they are unable to deal with the way they experienced reality. The first and very significant thing in which therapy can help is to recognize that I am like this, to give a name to the experience, to call the child by his name. The realization that there is, that I am not alone and that what I am experiencing is not foreign or strange is super significant and reassuring in itself.

So after there was recognition of sensitivity, it is necessary to move to recognition of sensitivity. When did I notice that I experience things more powerfully than others? Where did it contribute to me and make me successful and where did it hurt me and make me feel wrong, dramatic, scared? How do I learn to conduct myself in the world with my sensitivity, how do I mediate it to myself and others in order not to be in situations where it is present too strongly for me? What can help me in situations where I experience strong emotional strength to cope? Where is my sensitivity a gift for me and for the world? Of course, all these and more are part of a process of getting to know myself gradually and in depth, as part of a therapeutic interaction that has a safe space that allows looking inward into oneself.

Another layer in the process is the understanding of how my sensitivity and its interaction with the environment affected the shaping of my personality and mechanisms. As with any therapeutic process, there is a need to process processes of past experiences through a new point of view that accepts the sensitivity as it is, with a minimum of judgment and criticism. Many times very sensitive children, especially boys but not only, will receive negative feedback on their sensitivity and over the years they will either cut themselves off from soft parts within them or develop internal rigidity towards these parts since they are not accepted by the environment. Also, many times feelings will develop such as guilt, a feeling that I am burdening the other, that it is not okay to feel the way I feel. Strongly, in the emotional variety. And here, too, it is a matter of gentle and processual depth work within a benevolent therapeutic space in order to unravel internal flounderings from the past and to be able to give space to all the parts of me in the present.

It is important to note - every man or woman who comes for treatment brings with them a whole world and that every therapeutic interaction emerges in its own unique way. For highly sensitive women, the potential for growth and development within therapy is high, since this is a space that allows non-judgmental expression and even strengthens many of the qualities of these women.