What is a highly sensitive person (HSP)?
High sensitivity is an innate personality trait that is said to be found in about 15 to 20% of the population. It began to be more formally researched and synthesized by Dr Elaine Aron in the 1990s and is also referred to as "sensory processing sensitivity”. It is not a new discovery, but one that's been misunderstood in past decades. Elaine describes high sensitivity as a survival strategy centered around the tendency to observe before reacting. The brains of those with the trait tend to process subtle cues in the environment on a deeper level, which leads to tendencies to being reflective, empathetic and perceptive.
Dr. Aron has used the acronym DOES to describe the common traits of highly sensitive people (HSPs):
D: depth of processing
O: overstimulation
E: empathy and emotional responsiveness
S: sensitivity to subtlety
Depth of processing refers to the tendency to deeply process, interpret, and integrate what one is sensing and feeling in their environment; a natural tendency to “take it all in”.
Overstimulation speaks to the tendency to become easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli ( i.e., sound, sensations, etc) in response to deeply processing environmental details. This can make multitasking feel stressful.
Empathy/emotional responsiveness is the tendency to feel emotions deeply and to naturally pick up on the emotions of others. This includes all kinds of emotions–from feeling joy deeply, feeling care towards others deeply, and feeling difficult emotions like grief deeply. At times, it can make the line between self and other blur, leading to taking on the experience of someone else.
Sensitivity to subtlety is the ability to pick up on small, subtle details of the environment or people around you. It’s a natural tendency to be observant or take in subtle sensory stimuli.
It is imperative that we understand that being highly sensitive does not mean being fragile, overly emotional, or easily offended. Many HSPs are incredibly mentally tough, gritty, and fearless. We can instead understand sensitivity as a high level of perceptiveness. It's a trait that exists on a spectrum and comes in different flavors: some sensitivity may express it primarily through sensory differences, while others through empathy, yet others through deeply feeling emotions. High sensitivity is not a box to put ourselves in, but a way to better understand what our body needs.
Many wonder how this trait comes about. While some of us come into this world naturally as deep thinkers and deep feelers, others adapt to become more sensitive to our environment and respond to having to cope with difficult situations in our lives…and some people have both of these origins.
When balanced, sensitivity can contribute to wonderful strengths including creativity, empathy, introspection, support for others, intuition and passion. However when out of balance, it can lead to challenges such as burnout, anxiety, chronic health issues, overwhelm, people-pleasing, difficulty with boundaries, and perfectionism. Sensitivity is a strength and a superpower, but it's one that needs to be cared for and protected.
Therapy can be a helpful way to explore how to harness being highly sensitive, including understanding the impact it has had on your life experiences, how to set the appropriate boundaries to honor it, ways to care for your self/body, and ways to lean into the incredible strengths of this trait.
If you are curious about therapy for highly sensitive people in Santa Barbara or remotely throughout California, reach out to connect.