Many years ago, what you experience as sensitivity was perceived as hysteria. A flaw. A nervous system problem. Reading the history of high sensitivity, is not just fascinating, it changed my perspective completely. I know I say that a lot, but otherwise I wouldn’t be writing a blog about it. Knowing the history gives us the ‘why’. Just like every ‘why’, it gives us a reason, a purpose. It gives us comfort or even putting things in a different light.
It didn’t just start with a name
The term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) was coined by Elaine Aron only in 1996. But this story goes back much longer than that.
Around 150 years ago, women who were viewed as too emotional or dramatic were diagnosed with hysteria, described as a sensorial-emotional problem. In the Victorian era intense emotional and sensory reactions were dismissed as ‘hysteria’ or as a nervous system flaw. The word hysteria comes from the ancient Greek word hystera, which means ‘uterus’. Which creates an understanding about how the trait was being interpreted.
Scientists confused sensitivity with shyness. With introversion. It look a long time for someone to look at if differently.
Over the years, high sensitivity has gotten many names:
- 1913: the term ‘sensitive’ was used by Carl Jung.
- 1950s: Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess were child psychiatrists and they had a different perspective than the general accepted Freudian view of childhood development. Rather than seeing childhood as shaped purely by early experiences, they believed children are already different from birth. They studied these differences closely and observed nine traits, one of which was ‘low sensory threshold’.
- 1980s: Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan studied what he called ‘inhibited’ versus ‘unhibited’ childeren. Observing how they reacted to unfamiliar activities and objects. The unhibited childeren showed caution and sometimes fear, given more insight why some react slower to unfamiliar situations.
The theory that changed everything
Then Jack Belsky and Micheal Pluess came up with the Differential Susceptibility Theory, which I find super interesting.
Their theory suggests that natural selection shaped two fundamental types of people. Those who are genetically more adaptable and responsive to their environment, and those who are more fixed. Sensitive people fall into the first group, as they are more affected by both positive and negative influences. More attuned to detail. More responsive to what’s happening around them, in both their physical and social environment.
From an evolutionary perspective, both types have always served a purpose. Less sensitive individuals tend to be more resilient in difficult conditions, but may be less responsive to positive opportunities. They pay less attention to details and rely less on past experiences when responding. On the other hand, high sensitive individuals are more likely to benefit from positive influences, but are also more affected by negative ones. Due to their heightened awareness of opportunities and threat, which makes them better prepared to respond to emerging situations.
To increase the survival chances of a group, evolution made sure there would always be different ways of approaching a situation. This is where the story gets interesting.
The deer in the forest
Imagine a group of deer in a forest. They are hunting for food and trying not to get killed in the process. A part of the group is sensitive, they pause, they check, they observe before moving. The others are quicker to react.
Now imagine an open field with food in the middle. The less sensitive deer go immediately. They want to eat, so they go. The sensitive ones pause, they scan for predators first. They wait until they know it is safe.
If there are predators, the quick ones don’t make it. The sensitive ones survive. But if there are consistently no predators, the sensitive ones arrive too late and eventually starve.
Elaine Aron came up with this analogy in her book ‘Highly Sensitive People’, which I found quite extraordinary. It shows that sensitivity has purpose, that it was a strategy for survival.
What most people get wrong
Many assume that high sensitive people are shy or introverted, but that connection has never actually been confirmed. Around 30% of the HSPs are extroverted. The confusion comes from behavior, if you get easily overwhelmed, you will naturally either avoid certain situations or need more time alone to recover from overstimulation. That doesn’t mean you don’t get energy from being around people and having wide circle of friends. It just means your nervous system needs more time to process everything it took in.
Then there is something that surprises most people. Around half of all HSPs are also sensation seekers. Despite their natural caution towards the unfamiliar, they get bored easily and love doing new things. I am absolutely one of those these people, I love trying out new things, even when they scare me. It can feel quite contradictory and honestly sometimes it is.
Why the name matters less than you think
In the end, the label we give this trait matters more in academic circles than in real life. What matters more is understanding why you experience the world the way you do and learning how to work with it rather than against it.
Sensitive people are not oo sensitive. The world simply changed around us. The people who shaped modern society were largely the ones who were quick to react, comfortable with risk, and rewarded for being loud. At some point, there stopped being a clear place for those who paused to check. And slowly, arriving late to the field, being careful, being attuned, being deep, began to look like weakness.
But it was never weakness. We just arrived at a world that had already eaten all the food.
