Treating a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP): Therapy Options

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Highly Sensitive Person" by Elaine Aron. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Does therapy help with high sensitivity? What type of therapy is best for a highly sensitive person?

Although high sensitivity is not a mental illness, HSPs can benefit from psychotherapy. Engaging in psychotherapy can help HSPs manage heightened emotions and make sense of their experiences in the context of high sensitivity.

Here’s a look at HSP therapy options.

Engage in Different Types of Therapy

In her book The Highly Sensitive Person, psychotherapist Elaine Aron describes four HSP therapy options that have been shown to be effective in managing high sensitivity: cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, physical therapy, and spiritual therapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on changing the way you think and behave. It may involve getting better at certain tasks like socializing, or it may be focused on helping you learn to relax or get rid of irrational thoughts. These techniques can be done on your own, but it’s usually helpful to have a coach. A disadvantage of this technique is that it focuses on surface-level symptoms and sometimes treats sensitivity like an overreaction.

(Shortform note: Another downside of cognitive behavioral therapy is that it focuses on changing a patient’s behavior, but many HSPs need help not with their behavior but with their emotional reactions to stimuli such as other people’s behavior. Some HSPs may prefer compassion-focused therapy, an offshoot of cognitive behavioral therapy that helps people soothe their nervous systems in response to overarousing stimuli.)

Interpersonal therapy is based on talking and building a relationship with your therapist or group. It draws from different schools of psychology and focuses on inner work, such as working through feelings of trauma or experimenting with ideas about the future. Aron particularly recommends Jungian analysis because of its focus on the unconscious mind and its incorporation of spirituality. A disadvantage of this approach is that it might be overly appealing to HSPs because they are so good at introspection, and it may be difficult to leave this type of therapy—which can be very expensive.

(Shortform note: The efficacy of interpersonal therapy depends somewhat on the therapist you get. Some therapists approach their practice from an educational perspective and actively help their clients build skills that improve their lives. Other therapists often act as passive listeners who give their clients the opportunity to discuss their feelings but provide little feedback, which may be less effective. Others may be so devoted to a specific methodology that they can cause active harm to their clients. In choosing your therapist, look for one that places your needs first, believes your lived experiences, and responds with openness and understanding if you disagree with them on something.)

Physical therapy refers to any healing technique applied to the body. This can include exercise, diet, sleep, medications, sports, and massage. Aron points out that everything that happens to the body affects the mind, so physical therapy is a great way to help relax or heal the mind. With physical healing, it is particularly important to keep in mind that your body is more sensitive than the average body, and physical approaches can come with a lot of strong stimuli. If you’re already feeling overstimulated, for example, the intensity of a massage might make you feel worse than you did before. Be sure to discuss your sensitivity with anyone who is providing you with physical treatment.

(Shortform note: In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk echoes Aron’s point that anything done to the body affects the mind, and he adds that people who’ve experienced trauma often feel disconnected from their bodies and struggle to be aware of their physical sensations. If you’re an HSP who’s working through trauma, consider that you may be both more sensitive to yet less aware of your physical sensations, and take care when approaching any type of physical healing.)

The final type of healing Aron describes is spiritual healing. This includes things like religion, meditation, or connection with a higher power or self. Aron finds that HSPs respond particularly well to spiritual healing because they tend to look inward and desire to overcome overarousal through reframing, which many spiritual techniques offer.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that spirituality of any kind can be beneficial to our mental health. This means there’s no one “right” religion or type of faith that you need to find. Instead, you should practice whatever type of spirituality works best for you personally.)

Aron discusses a few disadvantages of spiritual healing: We might pursue it at the expense of other methods of healing, which can make us miss out on important information we could learn about our bodies and minds. We might also over-idealize spiritual leaders in our lives, which can lead us to become overly dependent on them, or worse—be taken advantage of. Finally, the principle of self-sacrifice underlying many religious and spiritual approaches can be harmful to HSPs who have low self-esteem.

(Shortform note: Another potential drawback of spiritual therapy is that some of it focuses on getting rid of unwanted emotions rather than processing them in a healthy way. This can cause a cycle in which repressing emotions makes you seek more spiritual healing, which causes you to repress even more. This can also be exacerbated by spiritual leaders who purposefully lead people into this cycle in order to make money. Be wary of spiritual leaders who are selling something or suggest that you can completely rid yourself of negative feelings.)

Treating a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP): Therapy Options