Book Review: The Highly Sensitive Person

Posted on December 1, 2008 in Bipolar Disorder Reading Stigma

[amazonify]0553062182::text::::The Highly Sensitive Person[/amazonify] by Elaine N. Aron

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aron has caught on to the fact that some of us are more susceptible to stimulation than others. Rather than use standard medical terminologies such as obsessive compulsion, depression, or bipolar disorder, she calls people afflicted/blessed with this frame of mind “Highly Sensitive Persons” or HSPs.

Aron probes the personality of that 10 to 20% of persons who are especially sensitive to stimula. She offers a checklist of characteristics that might indicate that you are highly sensitive including awareness of subtleties in your environment, being easily startled, having a rich inner life, being moved by the arts and music, and being sensitive to things like bright lights, loud noises, and caffeine.

Why is it, she asks, that HSPs are revered in China but at the bottom of their classes in Canada? It’s a matter of culture, she insists. And her job is to help HSPs see their promise as persons in a civilization that holds the warrior to be of greater value than the scientist.

You’re a complicated being, she insists, and you should not reduce yourself to genes and systems. Here I think she has a valid point. Too often we who suffer from depression and bipolar disorder identify ourselves as our disease. If we see our destiny as hard-wired, there’s not a lot we can do for ourselves. We become little more than lab rats, testing one medication after another because the results aren’t perfect. We may decide that the aim of our therapy is to numb ourselves to all pain — a goal that we may be surprised to find is not shared by our psychiatrist or therapist.

On the other hand, Aron is a tad too suspicious of medications, especially SSRIs such as Prozac. She believes that there may be a doctor’s culture which seems any kind of sensitivity as being a bad thing.

I would remind her that most of us turned to doctors because the world leaned on us too hard, that being totally open and free not only got us in trouble but hurt – bad.

Still, there are things about this book that make it a worthwhile read for those of us suffering from mood disorders. The world does often stimulate us beyond our sensitivities and we need to take steps to lessen that effect. Aron points out that medications need to be seen as a safety net to keep us from going too high or too low. In no way should we see them as the way to introduce dramatic changes in our personality. Drugs or no drugs, we have an obligation to understand ourselves and to take steps to fulfill our promise as persons.

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[amazonify]0553062182::text::::Order this book here[/amazonify]

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