What is Emotional Sensitivity?
When I am working with clients, one of the first things I tend to educate people on is the “emotional sensitivity” spectrum. Emotional sensitivity refers to how often and how intensely a person experiences their emotions. So, a person with high emotional sensitivity tends to experience emotions more often and more intensely than the average person, whereas a person with low emotional sensitivity tends to experiences emotions less often and less intensely than the average person. In my work with clients, many of the people I see tend to fall on the high end of the emotional sensitivity spectrum, not only because many of my clients are teens who’s brains are not fully developed yet (blog on this coming soon), but also because when a person with high emotional sensitivity experiences feelings such as sadness, anger, hurt, shame, fear, or pain, it is often so overwhelming that it prevents a person from coping effectively, thus leading them to seek therapy.
Below are two examples to help explain how having high emotional sensitivity can negatively impact a person:
1. When the average person gets cut off in traffic, they will likely feel frustrated or mad for a short time and then go back to thinking about what they were thinking about before they got cut off. A person with high emotional sensitivity; however, may go from feeling calm to feeling rage in a matter of seconds, and react by cursing, flicking the person off, and speeding up to pass and cut them off. They may ruminate about the event for hours after it happened and it may ruin their mood for the day. They might take this bad mood with them to school, work, or home, which can contribute to conflict with friends, teachers or family members.
2. A person gets a bad grade on a test or misses a deadline at work. Perhaps the average person would feel guilt, fear, or disappointment. They might even ruminate about it for a day or two. However, they would eventually shake it off, figure out a plan to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen next time, and move forward. A person with high emotional sensitivity may become depressed, suicidal and self-loathing. They might start thinking thoughts such as “I’m a screw up,” “I’m a failure,” or “I don’t deserve to be alive.” Such intense feelings and thoughts can lead a person to engage in behaviors such as isolation, self-harm, substance use, or other unhealthy behaviors.
The examples above show how being emotionally sensitive can negatively impact a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors. However, being emotionally sensitive can also be a very positive quality. Feelings such as love, happiness and joy are felt more often and more intensely. People who have high emotional sensitivity often exhibit characteristics such as kindness, creativity and empathy. That said, my goal in working with the emotionally sensitive person is not to get rid of a person’s emotional sensitivity, but instead to help people learn how to manage extreme emotions so that they feel more in control of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to feel more empowered in their every day life.