For adultsAnxiety Therapy for Highly Sensitive People in Massachusetts
Online, body-based therapy for adults who understand their anxiety but still feel it take over.
90-minute sessions and intensives
You can stop at any point
No full retelling required
EMDRIA Certified Therapist
EMDRIA Approved Consultant
Online, five states
90-minute sessions and intensives You can stop at any point No full retelling required EMDRIA Certified Therapist EMDRIA Approved Consultant Online, five states
Sound familiar?
Does this sound like you?
Anxiety does not only live in your thoughts. Your mind races from one worry to the next, you feel on edge even when life looks fine on paper, and your body carries it too, as tension, a tight chest, restlessness, or trouble sleeping.
If you have already done talk therapy and still feel this way, you are not doing it wrong. The part that has not settled often lives in the nervous system, below words.
You might identify as anxious, highly sensitive, deeply feeling, self-doubting, or simply overwhelmed by the pace and pressure of life. My clients often share:
“I second guess myself constantly.”
“I feel deeply and sometimes it's overwhelming.”
“I want to trust my intuition but don't know how.”
“I know what is going on intellectually but I can't seem to change my reactions.”
The part talk therapy does not reach
Why anxiety lives in the body, and how somatic therapy helps
Somatic therapy for anxiety works with the nervous system rather than only with your thoughts. Instead of talking your way toward calm, we pay attention to what your body is doing while the worry is happening, and help it find its way back to steadiness.
This matters because a great deal of anxiety is not really a thinking problem. It is a nervous system that learned to stay alert and never received the signal that it is safe to settle down. You can understand that perfectly and still feel your chest tighten, which is exactly the gap so many people describe after years of insight-based work.
Body-based approaches reach that layer because they speak its language.
Highly sensitive people
Therapy for highly sensitive people
Many of the people I work with are highly sensitive. You may process things more deeply than the people around you, notice what others miss, feel other people's moods as though they were your own, and need more recovery time after a full day than seems “reasonable”.
If you grew up being told you were too much, too emotional, or too sensitive, you may have learned to manage that by second-guessing yourself and/or shrinking. Over time, the constant self-monitoring starts to feel like anxiety, because that is what it becomes.
Sensitivity itself is not the problem. It comes with real strengths: intuition, empathy, and a capacity to notice what is going on beneath the surface. The work is not about becoming less sensitive. It is about finding confidence within it and having a nervous system steady enough that your sensitivity feels like information rather than a flood.
Is it anxiety, or is it high sensitivity?
Often it is both, and they feed each other. High sensitivity is a temperament trait rather than a diagnosis. Around one in five people have it, and it describes a nervous system that takes in more and processes it more deeply.
Anxiety is what can build on top when a sensitive system has spent years bracing, adapting, or being told to tone itself down. That is why managing anxiety alone often does not hold. It treats the response without addressing the sensitivity underneath, or the experiences that taught you to hide it.
How I work How I work
I work with individuals navigating anxiety, self-doubt, and the weight of past pain. Many are highly sensitive people and deeply intuitive individuals who feel disconnected from themselves. Together we explore the stuff that's stuck causing yuck, the unresolved experiences that hijack your present. I draw on several body-based approaches and match them to what your system responds to.
If earlier experiences are a significant part of what you are carrying, my trauma therapy page goes into that work in more depth.
EMDR
Helps the brain reprocess experiences that still carry a charge today. I am an EMDRIA Certified Therapist and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant.
Somatic Experiencing
Works with the nervous system's stress cycles, helping the body complete responses that were interrupted. I am currently a Practitioner in training.
Brainspotting
Uses the visual field to reach places that talking does not quite get to. I often move between Brainspotting and EMDR with the same person, depending on what is present that day.
Parts work and mindfulness
These run through everything, so the different parts of you that carry different jobs all get a say.
What we do together
When the inside feels filled with noise, we will create a place to land, a way back to stillness within. It is in that stillness that compassion shows up, like a gentle blanket that softens what has grown hard and brings comfort to the places that hurt.
I will sit with you in sorrow and laugh with you in joy, and together you will learn how to tend to and parent the parts of you that need nurture. From this grounded place, you will find a soft heart and strong back, making space for joy, freedom, and a deeply anchored sense of being to emerge.
Ways to work together
Ways we can work together
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90-minute sessions
More spaciousness to settle into the body, follow what unfolds, and move more deeply without feeling rushed. EMDR in particular was designed for sessions of 90 minutes or more.
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Weekly therapy, 45 to 50 minutes
A steady, supportive rhythm for consistent space to explore, regulate and integrate over time. Well suited to people who benefit from ongoing connection and gradual change.
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Intensives, two hours or more
A focused, extended container for goal-directed work and deeper nervous system processing. Well suited if you want to work efficiently with intention and depth over a shorter overall timeframe.
All sessions are held online through a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform, across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
I am an out-of-network provider and do not bill insurance directly. If you have out-of-network benefits, you pay upfront and I provide a superbill you can submit for possible reimbursement.
Getting started
What a first session is like
We start with a free 15-minute call. It is a conversation rather than an assessment, you can ask me anything, and I will be honest if I think someone else would be a better fit.
If we go ahead, the first proper session is about getting to know you and what brings you here. There is no expectation that you arrive organized, articulate, or ready. Most people find the early sessions are about building ground rather than digging.
5
states I am licensed in
15
minute free consultation call
0
pressure to retell the story
50
minute sessions, online by video
Meet your therapist
Meet Liza
I am Liza Detenber, LICSW, a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work.
As a mother, as someone who identifies as a Highly Sensitive Person, and as someone who has experienced anxiety firsthand, I know how uncomfortable it is to be stuck in overwhelm and self-judgment. That is part of why I work the way I do.
My belief is that nothing about you needs fixing. The work is about reconnecting to the wholeness that is already there, and helping your system feel safe enough to put down protections it no longer needs.
I work from a foundation of cultural humility, and offer anti-oppressive and LGBTQ+ affirming care.
Training and credentials
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW)
MSW, Smith College School for Social Work
EMDRIA Certified Therapist and EMDRIA Approved Consultant
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Training
Brainspotting, Phase 1 trained
Internal Family Systems Introductory Training
LocationsWhere I work
I see clients online across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
Most of the people I work with are in the Greater Boston area, including Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Arlington and Newton, though online sessions mean you can be anywhere in the states I am licensed in.
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Rhode Island
New Jersey
South Carolina
Frequently Asked Questions
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A highly sensitive person has a nervous system that takes in more sensory and emotional information and processes it more deeply. It is a temperament trait rather than a diagnosis, and around one in five people have it. It often comes with strong intuition and empathy, alongside a lower threshold for feeling overwhelmed.
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No, though they often travel together. High sensitivity is how your nervous system is built. Anxiety is what can develop on top of it, particularly if you learned early on to monitor yourself or tone yourself down. Working with both tends to hold better than treating the anxiety alone.
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Yes, and it is a large part of my practice. I identify as a highly sensitive person myself, which shapes how I pace sessions and how much room there is to go slowly.
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Yes. Somatic therapy works with the nervous system rather than only with thoughts, which is often what reaches the anxiety that insight alone has not settled.
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It is a different route to the same goal. Talk therapy works with understanding. Body-based work goes at the physical patterns underneath, which is usually what is still running when you understand your anxiety perfectly and still feel it.
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Yes. All sessions are held online, and I am licensed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
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It varies. Some people come for a defined piece of work over a few months, others stay longer. We will talk about it openly rather than leaving you guessing.
Ready to feel less ruled by your past?
Book a free 15-minute consultation and we will see if EMDR is a good fit for you.