Invisible Difference

Psychologist Elaine Aron makes the point repeatedly that High Sensitivity is not a matter of having sharper vision, keener hearing or more tender skin than other people. There is nothing that can be weighed or measured on the outside of a person which will indicate to the observer that an individual is highly sensitive in Aron's terms. High sensitivity happens inside the brain. It is specifically a tendency to process sensory information in a more detailed way.

• While more detailed processing leads to slightly slower decision making, it also creates
• a heightened ability to identify small differences
• a better memory... since we all have better memories for well processed information.
• More careful and detailed processing of experience may also lead to more understanding of the implications of an event for the future, and more understanding of its effect on other aspects of the present.

HSP's Struggle to Adapt

One might well ask, in the light of these advantages why it so often seems that the 15 to 20% of the population who are highly sensitive, struggle to adapt to a world that overwhelms them. Highly sensitive individuals are born as a minority into a cognitive and social world which is not set up to accommodate their natural way of being. To a highly sensitive person, the world will always move a little too fast for comfort. Other people's judgments are comparatively quick, rough and therefore "ready." Compared to the process of a HSP, the world which the rest of us live in might appear to be a world of generalities and approximations. Exceptions to rules and details which are evident when a situation is examined minutely are glossed over or ignored.

A Thought Experiment for Non-HSP's

If you are not an HSP, try this thought experiment in what it would be like to have more to process all the time...

Imagine the world with the volume turned up thirty percent. Thirty percent more cars on the road, moving thirty percent faster. The radio playing thirty percent louder all the time, feeling thirty percent more hungry at any given moment and having thirty percent more paperwork to process for any given task and thirty percent more housework or child-care to accomplish.

My figure of thirty percent is imaginary but if you ramp up the detail in your personal world you can easily see how it might quickly become exhausting and over-stimulating. Scale this experience down to a microscopic level but make it life-long and pervasive and you begin to have an idea what it is like to be an HSP living in our society.

High Sensitivity Compared to Left-Handedness

In a way, HSP's share a common problem with the approximately 10% of persons who are left-handed. The world is not set up to accommodate left-handers. Door handles are poorly placed, stairwells turn the wrong way, and tools have grips which are uncomfortable and unwieldy. Left-handers, as a result have a higher rate of minor injuries... not because they are awkward, imperfect or in any way inferior in their abilities, but simply because the world is set up the wrong way for them.

It is only in the last thirty years or so that it has been acceptable and considered normal, to be left-handed. Our grandparents were rapped on the knuckles and forced to train themselves against their nature to write in a right-handed copybook style. Left-handers were expected to agree that their choice of hand was incorrect and inferior. The fact that as "fake" right-handers they could never function as well, only lent psychological credence to their feeling of oddness and inadequacy. Educators today know that handedness is innate and left-handed children are no longer penalized or treated as inadequate or inferior and as a consequence they can grow up "proudly left-handed".

Highly sensitive people find themselves in a very similar situation. Since their difference is even less evident than choice of handedness, those closest to them are often unaware that there is an innate difference in the way that they approach the world. There is not usually, even in the most loving or supportive families, a conceptual vocabulary to imagine that such a difference might exist or that it might be a quality that is shared by a significant percentage of the human population. An HS child, is therefore, too often born into a childhood world that is not accommodating of their particular difference. They grow up feeling, like left-handers a hundred years ago, that they are slow, wrong and somehow always out of step with their non-HS peers.

Compared to an HSP, a left-hander stands out like a sore thumb. HSP is all but invisible, and as a human experience it is only beginning to be researched and understood. Where left-handers may be exposed to more accidental physical injuries, misunderstood HSP's are certainly exposed to social mis-attunement which can cause psychological and emotional injuries.

High Sensitivity and Psychotherapy

In the 1930's, psychologist Carl Jung was one of the first to consider the implications of high sensitivity. He noted that about 25% of his patients experienced emotional problems which were related to this quality.

It is easy to imagine that when a child is innately prone to process information deeply, to be sharply aware of details and differences and to create strong memories for well processed material, that they will experience many, many occasions when they are out of step with even the most loving family. Families which are under strain or chaotic for economic, health or interpersonal reasons will be naturally enough, even less receptive and supportive of "invisible" HSP difference and needs. HS children can then grow up feeling problematic, difficult, unappreciated and defective and often seek therapy for issues concerning low self-esteem.

Making the Invisible Visible

Work for HSP's in psychotherapy revolves around sorting out what aspects of their historical relationships were impacted by their sensitivity. Current negative self-assessments and self-judgments must be examined and debated in the light of the advantages and strengths of sensitivity. Realistic strategies can be elaborated to create a life that takes into account the tendency to become over-stimulated.

There are many satisfying ways to lead a human life and highly sensitive individuals are uniquely able to appreciate the subtle changes which can make a noticeable difference in their existence. The first step, however, is to make the invisible forces and assumptions visible through reflection and conversation.

Psychotherapy is often a very good place to do this. The slow pace and supportive environment creates a situation where their detailed attention to concrete and emotional experiences is an integral part of the therapeutic process and many HSP's deeply enjoy and benefit from the opportunity to apply their finest abilities constructively to their self-understanding and personal growth.

Reference:

E.N. Aron (2004). Revisiting Jung's Concept of Innate Sensitiveness. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 49, pp.337-367.

E.N. Aron (1996). The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, New York, Broadway Books.