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The Abilities of the Highly Sensitive Individuals
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What does it mean to have a high level of receptivity and sensitivity? The term “HSP,” which is commonly abbreviated to “Highly Sensitive Person,” may seem appealing to you. Being aware of your own emotions and those of others around you may even seem to be a part of what is often referred to as emotional intelligence. You should be better equipped to handle any circumstance in which tact and etiquette are essential, as long as you can understand yourself and sympathize with others.
Being an HSP, on the other hand, has its drawbacks. Have you ever been unable to make a rapid choice because you’ve been so preoccupied with attempting to block off your own feelings? You are forced to respond to a straight query from another person. Suddenly, your mind is racing as you contemplate the many potential outcomes of the words you are about to speak. It’s possible that your heart is racing, which would only serve to heighten your sense of anxiety. After you’ve thought of a response, you’re likely to fall back into feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, and remorse, afraid that what you’ve said will be misunderstood. People who are under these kinds of stress on a regular basis may find that their increased self-awareness is really a barrier.
The Abilities of the Highly Sensitive Individuals
Then there’s the HSP’s sensitivity to the physical stimuli in one’s environment, which is still another aspect of the HSP. When you’re surrounded by a lot of different sounds, colours, and temperature variations, it’s easy to become distracted and lose track of what you’re trying to do. The flip side of this sensitivity is that it may help you to appreciate the finer things in life. In a Van Gogh painting, for example, you may travel around in the beautiful world of his wheat fields or starry evenings and enjoy the experience.
How the Highly Sensitive Person came to be
Véronique De Gucht and colleagues at Leiden University (2022) argue that the disadvantages of HSPs have been overstated in past research, obscuring some of the positive features.
Although it is considered that being more aware of (subtle) sensory inputs, being more contemplative and processing these stimuli more fully, (possibly) leads to stronger emotional and physiological responsiveness, as noted by the authors. Psychopathology or mental health issues are thought to be the sole explanation for such heightened sensitivity, according to prior studies. De Gucht and her colleagues decided to investigate the HSP notion in further depth and discover both its merits and faults in order to overcome this constraint.
It’s simple to understand where this prejudice came from when you look back at previous HSP research. SPS, or “sensory processing sensitivity,” is a temperamental trait that may be measured by researchers from Rahoud University, according to Corina U. Greven et al. (2019). SPS, while not a condition in and of itself, may increase the probability of a highly sensitive person acquiring a mental illness under adversity throughout infancy. They may even be adversely impacted in adulthood by exposure to “terrorism-related media and community themes.”
Researchers like De Gucht argue that too much attention is paid to the HSP’s vulnerability to external influences, and that this temperament may really have certain advantages. They argue that reorienting the HSP around concepts like life satisfaction, overall well-being, and resiliency might be aided by placing it in this new context.
Positive and Negative Aspects of Being a Highly Sensitive Person
Having this context in mind, let’s look at the Dutch team’s efforts to redefine the HSP and its good and bad attributes. De Gucht et al. gave their draught questionnaire along with tests they anticipated would have a theoretical link with HSP and its probable features, starting with a pool of 60 questions from relevant instruments used in earlier research. The age range of the almost 10,300 people in their sample was 18 to 87 years old (mean=42 years old.). Physical health and psychological symptoms were also assessed, in addition to personality traits.
Six key characteristics emerged from a series of substudies in the construction of their new questionnaire, the Sensory Processing Sensitivity Questionnaire (SPSQ), which was developed by academics at Leiden University. On a scale from 1 to 7.
As you can certainly understand simply from the content of the items themselves, these six scales split between good and negative elements of being an HSP. In reality, only the first two components (the negative) were connected with neuroticism; the final four (the positive) were correlated with the personality characteristic of openness to experience. On average, participants scored at roughly a 5 on the 1-to-7 scale, with modest mean variances across different demographic groupings; the key contrast was that women had higher scores on all measures.
The Newly Identified Strengths of the Highly Sensitive Person and What This Means for You
With the Dutch results in mind, you now have some viable comebacks you may provide to folks who criticize you for being “too sensitive.” In addition, if you fear that there’s anything wrong with you for being so conscious of your inner feelings, such as physical pain, or so quickly immersed in works of art or music, you may now understand the adaptive merits of these attributes. These are characteristics that may balance the less-than-desirable traits of the HSP in extremely stressful or complicated circumstances.
A further positive of being an HSP is, as the U. Leiden researchers indicate, the likelihood of being better equipped to benefit from psychological therapies, including psychotherapy. Referring to the attribute of “vantage sensitivity,” described as “the inclination for individuals to gain disproportionately from favourable elements of environmental experiences,” the authors refer to this “bright side” of HSP.
To sum up, this wider look at the HSP may provide you a fresh method to seek both within and outside of yourself for those sources of satisfaction that can expand your capacity to explore the many intricacies that life has to offer.
Summary
The HSP’s sensitivity to the physical stimuli in one’s environment is another aspect of their intelligence. Being an HSP may help you appreciate the finer things in life, such as Van Gogh paintings. Prior studies have focused on the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), where psychopathology or mental health issues are thought to be the sole explanation. De Gucht et al. argue that too much attention is paid to HSP’s vulnerability to external influences and that this temperament may have certain advantages. The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) may be better equipped to benefit from psychotherapy, according to Leiden researchers. Being an HSP may provide you with a fresh method to seek those sources of satisfaction that can expand your capacity to explore the many intricacies of life.
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