Highly Sensitive People - Invisible Difference is Problematic

 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 Persönlichkeits- und Businesscoaching 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.