The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

By Elaine N. Aron

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Are you a highly sensitive person? Discover how to better understand yourself and create a fuller, richer life with the help of a clinical psychologist--now with a new author's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553062182
• ISBN13: 9780553062182
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.2" x 0.7" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Life-changing if you've never heard of this before, still reaffirming if you have.

Good book with a lot of good insights. One of the few books I actually highlight in. I related with a lot of it, although some of the exercises and applications rubbed me the wrong way. But I think that’s just a personal thing, because I don’t like when people tell me what to do lol. Really life-changing insights if you’re a sensitive person and have never heard of the concept of HSPs before, and even though I’ve known for a while, I still found some parts that have helped me figure some stuff out in my life.

Fabulous book for us Highly Sensitive People

I always thought I was this kind of person, so reading this and the related research was hugely validating for me. If you think you're even possibly this type, get the book! It could be life-changing for you! Mine is filled with highlighting and sticker markers! There's also a HSP network you can tap into which I'm only just beginning to see tips and educational things from.

Highly sensitive people are an asset- not defectives.

I truly wish that this book would have existed 30 or more years ago. Almost everthing traditionally written on this subject has been tacitly negative. The highly sensitive, or introverted, personality type was automatically assumed to be defective to some degree for their failure to "adapt" to the extroverted "norm." I think that this is because most traditional American psychological thought has been fundamentally industrial and military psychology- the subject is always supposed to adapt to the environment and never the other way around. Those who cannot adapt are identified and disposed of. That is certainly how military psychology has always been practiced. This book is the first to demonstrate that highly sensitive people are both "normal" and have many valuable traits. Indeed, they excel against extraverts in most areas that make people truly "human." Not only that, but in other cultures without an unnatural majority of extraverts, the sensitive person was seen as the ideal friend and citizen. I especially appreciated the explanation of the biochemistry of "over-stimulation." When sensitive people are forced to interact in unnatural evironments the cortisol levels in their bloodstream increases, making them even more sensitive to their environment than they usually are. Unless they can withdraw, or otherwise calm themselves, it is a virtual certainty that they will overreact. This means that they will act contrary to their usual conscientious, reasonable, and understanding normal behavior in order to escape. Needless to say, inspite of the fact that this reaction is virtually out of their control, this overreaction is dealt with harshly by society- and by employers. Inspite of the fact that highly sensitive people are the most conscientious, hard-working, competent, and even gifted, of employees 99% of the time, this absolute physical need to escape to a less stressful environment can ruin their lives. They are labeled as freaks, as not being "team players"- and as "unemployable." I know this, for like the author, I was also born a HSP. This means that in an unnaturally extraverted society I often find myself wishing that I had not been born at all- inspite of my gifts, inspite of the shear injustice of it all....

If you've ever been told, "You're too sensitive," read this

In this unique book, research psychologist Elaine Aron breaks new psychological ground by defining a personality trait inadequately explored in the past, a trait that an estimated 15-20% of the U.S. population carries. The trait manifests in a highly sensitive nervous system present from birth and probably inherited, much like other personality traits or physical features. Highly sensitive people, or HSPs as Aron calls people who possess this trait, are much more sensitive to nearly everything they experience -- from the sensory characteristics of objects and events, to the subtleties of inner feelings and relationships between people. As a result of this heightened awareness to everything in their environment, highly sensitive people in our culture are often told, "You're too sensitive for your own good," and are admonished to develop a "tougher skin." Ms. Aron discusses the ways in which people with this trait have frequently been mislabeld in the past, often branded as "shy," "introverted," or "neurotic," even by professionals. She goes to great lengths to define and describe the sensitivity trait as it influences an individual's life, providing both research evidence and personal anecdotes from the scores of people interviewed for her work. The evidence illustrates that being a highly sensitive person is both a blessing and a burden, depending upon a number of different factors in the life history of the individual. Possessing this trait can make life challenging at times but Ms. Aron, herself an HSP, emphasizes that being sensitive is not a psychological disorder or a personality flaw to get rid of. The sensitivity trait is merely a part of an individual's personality. Being highly sensitive need not limit a person's enjoyment of life, but it will impact everything from relationships with others to the work one chooses to do. THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON is less self-help and more self-acceptance, however, Aron offers suggestions! for contending with the highly sensitive nautre in order to thrive in a society that often fails to appreciate this trait, particularly in boys and men. If you are or know a highly sensitive person, this book offers constructive insights that will bring new perspective to the past, the present, and the future.