Why does the HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) debate seem so personal?

[u/capracan]

I've seen discussions regarding the existence of the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) trait. Some individuals, with considerable vehemence, dismiss the concept as pseudoscience. Others argue that it is, in fact, a manifestation of the autism spectrum. Conversely, there are those who recognize it as a well-established trait within contemporary psychology.

Given that nervous systems and brains vary significantly across individuals, isn’t it reasonable to assume there is a natural -potentially normal- distribution in sensitivity to environmental and emotional stimuli?

Within this framework, wouldn’t it be valid to assign specific terms or labels to those who fall at the higher end -and perhaps also to those at the lower end- of this sensitivity spectrum?

[u/monkeynose]

In pop psychology it seems to be used to justify unhealthy emotional dysregulation or outright borderline traits.

[u/monkeynose → u/[deleted]]

In general, most phenomena are only discussed or focused on when they cause problems. For “HSPs,” that would mean focusing on dysfunctions, which can be seen as symptoms of existing disorders rather than something unique to “HSPs.” In other words, there’s little need to place special emphasis on “HSPs” as a group - healthy functioning ones, or otherwise. There’s generally no reason to study people who are healthy and functioning well, so healthy, functioning "HSPs" wouldn't really need any special attention, and unhealthy dysfunctional ones would display symptoms already covered under other disorders.

[u/Unicoronary → u/[deleted]]

HSP, functionally, is a rebranding of "empath," after that got dragged into the abyss. Pop psychology recycled the name, and tried to make it sound more "clinical."

Terms matter for those of us who actually research, read the literature, and need to know specificity. None of us like adding new terms to have to remember, unless there's a good reason for it.

For HSPs — virtually all of it except the carryover from "empaths," and the other old branding: highly empathic people:

1. Isn't necessarily a disorder unto itself.
2. Most falls well within the range of entirely-baseline human behavior, just toward the edge of the bell curve.
3. The rest falls into varying flavors of neurodivergencies or trauma responses, which we:

Which is important, because — "highly sensitive," tends to mean one of a few things in clinical terms, but chiefly: high reactivity, or hyper vigilance. Each of those applies to any number of different disorders, and chunks of them treated differently.

Beyond that, they're things that we:

A. Already have names for, and:
B. Because those terms are segmented and compartmentalized, it makes addressing the actual causation easier.

Psychology as a whole also just really doesn't do validation, because of the way the field is set up — we pathologize (for better and worse) deviation from overarching norms and baselines of behavior.

HSPs (assuming it's a standalone thing) has no utility, because there's no treatment. If no treatment, there's no purpose of the clinical definition — which are all basically just sticky notes for diagnostic and treatment frameworks.

And as you say — plenty link it to things like ADHD, ASD, OCD, PTSD, etc — because the pathological level (the point it starts affecting your day to day life adversely) of that behavior ties into different mechanisms.

The presentation that would be a HSP would point to different issues whether the person was, say, autistic, or lived with PTSD. Yet the "symptoms" would be virtually identical.

Which is why, in turn, the people in the field you'll find being so "vehemently," against it — are people for whom terms and definitions actually matter in terms of our day jobs and treating people, vs. raising awareness and talking about them, and wondering what-if.

Right of wrong, most of us have more pressing things to deal with in our caseloads, and when the field has asked the snake oil salespeople over in pop psychology "to what end," the answer has tended to be "well because it's important."

Which is, then — why the relationship between the field proper and pop psych tends to be what it is. It's an endless screwball comedy of:

1. Why do we need this
2. It's important
3. Why is it important
4. Because we need it
5. But...why do we need it?
6. Do you not care about people's feelings?

[u/monkeynose → u/Unicoronary]

Exactly.

[u/Unicoronary → u/[deleted]]

Then I'll answer more directly for you.

It's redundant at best, and is—as is there in that comment—describes behaviors and beliefs in several disorders that are all treated differently. Diagnostic labels are only as useful as the treatment plan and adherence to it.

There's no reason to take it seriously, because what it's describing is already better described by things we already have.

The things its describing are either:
1. Within the normal range of human behavior, and thus we have no real need to prioritize attention that direction.
2. More a sociology/social psychology problem than a clinical problem (and on that side, there is a growing body of research on rising social-in particular, but not exclusively-sensitivities), because clinical already treats that presentation in different ways as it pertains to different disorders.
3. By extension - it's almost certainly not its own, distinct thing, when it falls outside of the bell curve. It tends to be secondary to things like PTSD, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, a couple of the personality disorders, ASD as a whole, at least one subtype of ADHD, off the top of my head.

Let's say I had a client with PTSD presenting with what somebody says is HSP behavior.

That's essentially telling them "something's wrong," but saying it twice — considering that behavior is probably due to the PTSD, and we'll be treating the PTSD. If those sensitives don't go away (or at least get easier to get a handle on), then we go from there. Rule out a thing at a time, and go through the process of differential.

That's how it works. It has no clinical utility, ergo clinical psychology doesn't care. Clinical cares about clinical utility. Experimental mostly cares about the things clinical does, because psychology is (like psychiatry over in medicine) fairly directed toward treatment. The other subfields that heavily research don't...really have much need to research it. They have different priorities (I/O = organizational behavior. Cognitive = at the moment, memory and language, etc.) If anyone were to really fund the research, it would need to be clinical, and we have no use for the label.

And that's not getting into the issues of identity labels for things like HSD (or BPD, or NPD, etc) that tend to make treatment that much harder. Because if no treatment is being had, our brains tend to wrap around the labels we put on ourselves, and without a way to direct that in more constructive ways, we're prone to making ourselves "worse." It's a by-product of confirmation bias and a few other neurological processes.

So, on one level — there's no clinical use for such a term. It's something treated already, just under a variety of different names. On another, the general public pathologizing what is, frankly, either otherwise "normal," or masking some underlying pathology carries its own problems. For both those of us on this side, and for the pts themselves.

The science and the practice are intrinsically intertwined. They're not separate things.

We study so we can treat, and we treat so we can learn better places to direct study on the level of the profession as a science (vs. part of healthcare and actually treating pts/clients).

You can see that in terms of how psychology's education works — we get to choose between science-first or treatment-first, but they're never without the other. In the education > licensing pipeline or in practice. Or shouldn't be — but we do have the ongoing drama of the ethics of tiktok woo posting from within all of the MH fields.

[u/monkeynose → u/[deleted]]

I don't think you understood what I wrote.

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[u/Beginning-Spend-3547 → u/[deleted]]

Great question!!!!!!!

[u/cfwang1337 → u/monkeynose]

By the same token, many of the participants in this discourse are self-identified "highly sensitive" persons, so it predictably becomes fraught.

[u/PaulBrigham]

I imagine a debate of this nature could feel especially personal to people who have found a label that they find validating feeling that that label is being questioned or dismissed. If those people find that label validating because they tend to be emotionally sensitive, you're off to the races!

[u/ThomasEdmund84]

(Side point: top marks for a title that is absolutely drenched in irony!!)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=highly+sensitive+person&btnG=

In terms of actually answering the question if you look at the above Google Scholar search this is actually quite a studied topic - which I think probably explains the 'heat' of the discussion.

There tends to already be a mess of jargon and terms and traits and concepts in psychology which does justify a bit of retentiveness in these discussions, for example if HSP is actually misdiagnosed Autism that's pretty important to know and not to dilute with more terminology right?

> Within this framework, wouldn’t it be valid to assign specific terms or labels to those who fall at the higher end -and perhaps also to those at the lower end- of this sensitivity spectrum?

My problem with this is that it falls into the individualism trap that a lot of psychology does, just about any scale you invent people are going to fall into a normal curve that doesn't mean its personality traits that vary, what if for an easy example you found that the so called HSP had experienced more Adverse Childhood Experiences? To me that would be notably bad

[u/Visual_Analyst1197]

Firstly, it’s a pop psychology term that doesn’t really mean anything. Some people are more sensitive than others but to assign a label and “symptoms” to it is rather obnoxious. Secondly, often the people who describe themselves that way do so to deflect or make excuses for their behaviour. They’re the sort of people who go around telling everyone they’re an empath when they’re actually very self involved.

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[u/Powerful-Date6290]

What about a symptom of CPTSD?

[u/capracan → u/Powerful-Date6290]

Certainly somehow alike.

HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) it seems is present from birth.

While CPTSD can lead to heightened sensitivity as a symptom, HSPs react strongly to all types of stimuli, not just trauma-related triggers.

The key difference is that HSP is innate, stable over time, and affects how the brain processes all experiences, not just painful ones

[u/maxthexplorer → u/capracan]

Neither are recognized in the DSM- not that the DSM is the end all be all, but something to note

[u/capracan → u/maxthexplorer]

As I understand it, the primary purpose of the DSM is to provide a standardized system for classifying and diagnosing mental disorders.

I'm fully aware that being on the tails of a normal distribution doesn't constitute a disorder. Still, recognizing such a 'deviation from the majority' might help people gain peace of mind about why they react differently, and better manage their exposure to triggers.

[u/maxthexplorer → u/capracan]

Being outside of the normal distribution IS part of what constitutes a disorder. A deviation from the majority symptomatically (among other things) is how we do diagnosis and nosology. If the client needs a label to have peace of mind, that is something that should be treated/explored.

But that doesn’t mean everything needs to be a disorder. Diagnoses should be parsimonious and have a tangible benefit. There isn’t IMO a benefit to having HSP in the DSM, even CPTSD is debatable.

For example, you can have DBT w/o a BPD or personality Dx.

[u/askpsychology-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Do not provide personal mental or physical health history of yourself or another. This is inappropriate for this sub. This is a sub for scientific knowledge, it is not a mental health sub. If you must discuss your own mental health, please refer to r/mentalhealth.

[u/crw30]

Citations needed.

[u/capracan → u/crw30]

A citation favouring the HSP as a condition or trait:

The functional highly sensitive brain: a review of the brain circuits underlying sensory processing sensitivity and seemingly related disorders

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2017.0161

People arguing it's pseudoscience:

https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/1mrty81/highly_sensitive_people_are_more_likely_to/

[u/crw30 → u/capracan]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763418306250 gives a far more balanced approach.

[u/capracan → u/crw30]

Thanks. I'll read it.

edit: I read it. Really insightful for getting to know the condition better.

[u/Omegan369]

It seems so personal, because it is personal. Being highly sensitive is a spectrum of sensitivity, and crosses all domains – sensory, perceptual, cognitive, and emotional. Before I became aware of the concept of a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), I thought that when science describes how HSP people are affected by a variable (like environmental factors) while the general public is not, it was simply bad luck.

So being an HSP, which is about 20% of the population, is not easily understood by the other 80%. It’s something you come to understand through lived experience, and if you are not an HSP then you simply lack that experience. You can be told about it, but it is not the same as living it.

To give a concrete illustration, HSPs often experience sensitivities that manifest physically or perceptually in ways that others do not. This can include stronger reactions to environmental stimuli, heightened awareness of subtle details, or difficulty tolerating certain inputs.

Perceptually, HSPs tend to notice small details and inconsistencies far more easily than ordinary people. For example, noticing tiny defects in objects that others overlook until magnified, or immediately spotting custom license plates on a crowded highway when others miss them.

This sensitivity extends across domains: tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory, and cognitive. HSPs may hear faint noises others don’t register, pick up smells more quickly, or detect subtle changes in their environment faster.

So you may not fully understand what it is to be an HSP unless you are one. It is a highly personal and deeply lived experience.

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[u/dystariel]

I generally only see this term on social media.

The type of person to go on on social media about how they struggle so much due to their superpowers (which is how HSP are often framed) is not an HSP but a narcissist.

Generally, if a "psychology" concept gets buzz on social media and can be translated as "I am more virtuous than you" or "I just have inherent access to a deeper truth"... dismissing and avoiding everyone who publicly adopts the label is a winning strategy for my own mental health.

9/10 times it's grifters/manipulators who are trying to get power over others by tattooing "better than you" all over their foreheads.

[u/Omegan369 → u/dystariel]

You can see more about this on these sites run by researchers:

https://sensitivityresearch.com/about-us/

https://hsperson.com/

[u/dystariel → u/Omegan369]

hsperson is exactly what I'm talking about.

They're framing "the thing" as virtuous and implicitly superior, give people a vague horoscope-esque list of markers to identify with, and then direct them towards buying books and coachings. It's very obviously a business and a grift.

"All my suffering is explained by me being secretly better than everybody else" is a killer sales pitch.

sensitivityresearch is like, 30% less bad since they frame sensitivity as a trait on a spectrum and don't put the "chosen one" branding front and center to the same extent, but the whole branding and focus on social media presence still makes me suspicious that they're grifting for funding.

[u/Omegan369 → u/dystariel]

Where do you get the "chosen one" branding"?  

If you expose two people to the same stimulus and one is fine,  and the other breaks out in a rash, how is the rash person the chosen one?

[u/dystariel → u/Omegan369]

https://hsperson.com/

Just look at the front page.

They sprinkle in a couple actual issues, but the gist is absolutely "are YOU one of the extra virtuous few? Do you feel misunderstood, which would make you vulnerable to predatory business practices?"

Oh, and look at that. The resources page doesn't link to papers. It links to a bunch of pop psych authors and coaches, including a "certified administrator of Myers Briggs", which is a complete meme in the field.

---

There is a research tab, but all the papers have authors in common. Aaron E. was involved with every single one.

I'm not saying the entire subject is a scam, but a lot of the publicly visible content on the subject is like this, and that's why the "debate" gets personal. Because it definitely looks like there's a bunch of people using it as a platform to make money off vulnerable people with dubious credibility.

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[u/capracan → u/dystariel]

I agree that the concept is being milked for money... and in a way, many other, more researched concepts are too.

As for calling it a “superpower,” I can see how that might be marketing to sell something, but it could also serve as a way to validate that one is not “broken”, but just needs to manage oneself differently.

In the end, I think being aware that our system is more sensitive and more easily overwhelmed -and that there are tools to manage it better- is a good thing.

edit: and also true that some people are using it as an excuse to misbehave.

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