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

Aron insists that high sensitivity is a normal, if relatively rare, trait that—like other personality types—has both benefits and downsides. The book aims at accentuating the benefits and helping HSPs work their way through the challenges, using such techniques as reframing and pursuing psychotherapy. While insisting throughout the book that sensitivity is not a disorder in need of a cure, Aron also acknowledges that HSPs encounter unique problems and suggests means for overcoming them.

Aron gives an overview of high sensitivity in the Preface and Chapter 1, noting that HSPs are more highly attuned to all kinds of stimulation. This trait offers many advantages: It makes HSPs more intuitive, allowing them to assess the nuances of social interactions that often elude others and even sometimes allowing them to sense dangers that others may be unaware of. In the workplace, for example, HSPs often help their colleagues by sensing potentially unhealthy or problematic situations before they grow. However, high sensitivity also means a greater propensity to become “overaroused,” that is, for the nervous system to become so highly stimulated that it begins to shut down. Aron stresses that overarousal happens to everyone, but HSPs are more prone to this state than others. A key to living successfully as an HSP is learning to recognize the early warning signs of overarousal and make choices that reduce stimulation when necessary. 

HSPs’ sensitivity to stimulation also provides both benefits and challenges in relationships. Especially when the other person is not highly sensitive, the difference in how each reacts to the world around them can create conflicts. At the same time, Aron highlights how HSPs’ sensitivity and empathy can make them ideal partners in relationships of many kinds, arguing that these qualities are a benefit both to HSPs and to society. In particular, HSPs can benefit nonsensitive persons by helping them discover “the deepest nuances of private experience” (100) and functioning as an “inner anchor” of stability.

Considered more broadly, the highly sensitive temperament has both strengths and weaknesses in Aron’s analysis. HSPs tend to be connected to the deepest aspects of human experience, but they can be prone to neglect more immediate practicalities. They can be alert to potential risks and dangers, but this may make them needlessly hesitant about trying new things. While highly aware of self, HSPs can be harmfully self-critical and second-guess themselves to a fault. This is why, according to Aron, society depends on the complementary relationship of different personality types, as seen in the interaction of “warrior kings” and “royal advisors.” As a visceral example, Aron cites the time a more extraverted colleague at a conference encouraged her to try out a swing over a high gorge, and she was rewarded with an exhilarating and liberating experience.