By: Elaine N. Aron Ph.D. Publisher: Broadway Books Average Rating: Binding: Perfect Paperback Label: Broadway Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 251 Publication Date: June 02, 1997 Release Date: June 02, 1997
Product Description: Are you a highly sensitive person?
Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you "too shy" or "too sensitive" according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).
Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the Highly Sensitive Person, it's a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a psychotherapist, workshop leader and highly sensitive person herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.
In The Highly Sensitive Person , you will discover: * Self-assessment tests to help you identify your particular sensitivities * Ways to reframe your past experiences in a positive light and gain greater self-esteem in the process * Insight into how high sensitivity affects both work and personal relationships * Tips on how to deal with overarousal * Informations on medications and when to seek help * Techniques to enrich the soul and spirit
Amazon.com Review: Are you an HSP? Are you easily overwhelmed by stimuli? Affected by other people's moods? Easily startled? Do you need to withdraw during busy times to a private, quiet place? Do you get nervous or shaky if someone is observing you or competing with you? HSP, shorthand for "highly sensitive person," describes 15 to 20 percent of the population. Being sensitive is a normal trait--nothing defective about it. But you may not realize that, because society rewards the outgoing personality and treats shyness and sensitivity as something to be overcome. According to author Elaine Aron (herself an HSP), sensitive people have the unusual ability to sense subtleties, spot or avoid errors, concentrate deeply, and delve deeply. This book helps HSPs to understand themselves and their sensitive trait and its impact on personal history, career, relationships, and inner life. The book offers advice for typical problems. For example, you learn strategies for coping with overarousal, overcoming social discomfort, being in love relationships, managing job challenges, and much more. The author covers a lot of material clearly, in an approachable style, using case studies, self-tests, and exercises to bring the information home. The book is essential for you if you are an HSP--you'll learn a lot about yourself. It's also useful for people in a relationship with an HSP. --Joan Price
VALIDATION: it helps on so many levels Going through my entire life as an HSP without ever hearing of "any such thing," you can imagine how good it felt to have a name for what I was experiencing and to discover a book that was, in effect, written about me and how I am "wired."
I was especially struck by the HSP Self Test toward the beginning of the book, a series of 23 true/false questions, of which I scored 21 (a score of "12 or more" means you are probably an HSP). I felt thrilled and validated to see, in writing, some of the test questions describe traits I had which I felt so alone in having - particularly startling easily, sensitivity to sounds and lights, arranging your life to avoid unpleasant or overwhelming situations, and avoiding violent movies and TV shows like the plague (even the news). I mean, we are talking I had tape over the tiniest lights of the TV and DVD player in my bedroom so I could sleep, years before discovering what HSP was.
I admittedly have not read the entire book cover to cover, and the reason I did not give it 5 stars was because I found the writing style to be (at times) a bit dry, formal and unengaging. Even so, this is a valuable book for those of us who are so highly sensitive trying to live in what seems to be a world of insensitivity.
If you are an HSP, my advice is to learn as much as you can about your trait - how to protect yourself and honor your sensitivity - without getting into a victim mindset over it. I enjoyed Aron's book enough to recommend it in my own book, "The Collective Awakening" (just published 5/25/09), which may appeal to HSPs whose struggles with sensitivity and even physical illness have driven them down a path of spiritual awareness and deep personal inquiry. Sincerely, Kathleen M. Diehl The Collective Awakening: Messages Along the Path of Awareness
A life-changing book As someone who often feels the need to lie down for awhile in silence after returning from any type of moderately noisy group activity (parties, meetings), this book was a revelation. Thoughtful, detailed and genuinely useful, it is a resource to which I've returned again and again over the years, whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed and misunderstood. I only wish the author could have avoided coining yet another syndrome (HSP); it's handy for marketing, I'm sure, but fails to convey the subtlety of the author's perceptions.
A must read for HSP"s (highly sensitive people). If you are highly sensitive and are wondering why you feel "different" sometimes this book will help validate you and celebrate HSP's.
If you're highly sensitive, this book is for you! I read this book and recommended it to other HSPs. It really changed the way I view my life and my responses to people, places and things. Those people I recommended the book to, said the same thing. I scored 17/22 on the sensitivity scale and my relief at understanding my nature was enormously relieving. If you've been told you are too sensitive or suspect that you are, this book may help you. I know it did for me. I give it a 5 star rating and a huge thank you to Dr. Aaron for her extensive research and efforts to further understand the highly sensitive person.
Well perhaps When I first read this book several years ago I found it quite intriguing. So why do I rate it 3 stars? In a nutshell, I believe the author treats socio-cultural phenomena as epiphenoma (not central to the genesis of sensitivity-related problems if you will), and that the creation of a HSP phenotype (or race of human if you wish)could be a reification, to a greater or lesser extent. The author does address how our contemporary culture is not a welcoming or healthy environment for HSPs in general, and has written about what HSPs can do to protect themselves....but, I find myself asking a nagging question as I read this thesis: is the author possibly reifying the concept of a HSP? and if so, she could well be minimizing a much more evil force afoot in our contemporary society--the cultural toxicity that destroys self-esteem from a very young age and enslaves people to various psychological problems as they age--anxiety disorders, drug addiction, eating disorders, etc. If you went to middle school and high school in US (or probably anywhere) you know what I'm talking about. Indeed, as a practicing psychiatrist for the past 6 years, I could give any of my anxiety disorder patients this book and it is my belief that many would conclude that they are HSP. But is this accurate? There is no doubt children are born with different biological temperaments, and that there probably exists a cohort of children that are more sensitive to stimuli(and I would not be surprised if these children were at greater risk for certain psychological problems later in life). And according to the book, these children grow up to be HSPs, victimized by a society unaware of their unique properties and needs. But what if the real genesis of a person's anxiety/sensitivity (or whatever psychological problem...if it is a problem) was caused by toxic cultural processes in the first place (usually occurring in the first decade of life) and this is the real source of suffering--a self image severely beaten down by a toxic culture! I do not know the answer to this question, but the few people I have witnessed significantly reduce their difficulties with anxiety don't seem to be HSP anymore. Which brings up another risk...could accepting the label of HSP make a person say, "well this is just the way it is?" which would be fine if it IS truly a biological phenomena impervious to change...but what if itisnt? what if it's a deep-rooted psychological problem that could be changed?
Paul Nicholas, MD, MPH email: stealthy_armadillo@yahoo.com
In sum, the book is intriguing, but is it guilty of reification? I don't know, but this is my suspicion....the author doesnt address it.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
