High Sensitivity

Treatment of problems with High Sensitivity

How do I recognize (problems) with High Sensitivity?

Every person receives information via the senses. However, a highly sensitive person experiences the stimuli through sensory sensations more intense and deeper. The nervous system takes on more details and these incentives are sorted more intense. Being highly sensitive offers advantages, but as long as you are not able to use the benefits, you can experience high sensitivity as an disadvantage.

Some features of High Sensitivity

• You love peace and quiet and cannot stand a lot of noise
• You often need to isolate yourself from others
• You perform worse under pressure and you feel terrible when others look on your fingers
• You are prone to physical and mental pain to yourself or others
• You are caring, provide assistance to others easily, and forget yourself
• You feel deeply connected to the plant and animal world
• You have trouble converting ideas into concrete actions
• You seem shy to others, but are actually very social
• You empathize too much with others, making you very tired
• You often cannot sleep because of fatigue
• You’re afraid to make mistakes and overly perfectionistic
• You have stress symptoms quickly, such as stomach pain, troubled bowels, headache
• You have a striking aversion to violence and injustice
• You can be deeply moved by the arts or music
• You can fully focus on a relationship, easily leading to burnout or relationship breakdown
• You have trouble recognizing and indicating your limits

Treatment of problems with High Sensitivity at Expat Psychologist 

Highly sensitive persons often focus on the world outside and live their life from the outside in. The goal of counseling is that you’re going to live from your true nature again, meaning that you learn to give direction to your life from the inside. Because I am highly sensitive myself, I give you insight in your personality and clear instructions how to deal with high sensitivity.

As a parent you may also have to deal with high sensitivity in the family. Therefore it is important to get clear instructions on how to cope with your highly sensitive child.

More information about the guidance of problems with High Sensitivity and other complaints can be found under treatment.

Ten tips to deal with high sensitivity. Read it here.

Scientific news

Temperament trait of sensory processing sensitivity moderates cultural differences in neural response.

Research shows that sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), a temperament trait characterized by social, emotional and physical sensitivity was associated with significantly greater activation in brain areas involved in high-order visual processing (i.e. right claustrum, left occipitotemporal, bilateral temporal and medial and posterior parietal regions) as well as in the right cerebellum, when detecting minor (vs major) changes in stimuli. These findings remained strong and significant after controlling for neuroticism and introversion, traits that are often correlated with SPS. Results provide the evidence of neural differences associated with SPS, the direct support for the sensory aspect of this trait that has been studied primarily for its social and affective implications, and preliminary evidence for heightened sensory processing in individuals high in SPS.

Aron, A., Ketay, S., Hedden, T., Aron, E. N., Markus, H. R., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2010) Temperament trait of sensory processing sensitivity moderates cultural differences in neural response. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 6, 38-47.