High Sensitivity Is a False Concept: The Numbness and Stagnation of "Highly Sensitive People"

I. Numbness to “Whether It Is Real Love”

Highly sensitive people are sensitive to other people’s emotions, attitudes—everything—yet insensitive to the most fundamental, most basic question: whether the other person truly loves and respects them. This terrifying, potentially fatal numbness is conditioned into them during the first 20 or 30 years of life in a hostile environment.

Most people find it hard to face life head-on: to use “real love and respect” as the criterion for assessing every person in their contacts, and confront the fact that out of a thousand people, very few respect them.

A. Sensitivity means being sensitive to “possible love” and “what seems like love.” If your love is conditional, I willingly meet your conditions; if you are willing to deceive me, I willingly fall for it; if you so much as glance at me, I take it to mean you care about me. The result is that I draw ever closer to toxic people and move away from healthy, well-adjusted people. B. Sensitivity means being sensitive to danger. Any sign of a loss of control, especially “a loss of control over oneself,” can trigger a breakdown. Longing and fearing at the same time, anxiously attached: a natural target for psychological manipulation.

II. I Do Not Agree with the Term “Highly Sensitive Person,” Much Less the Claim That “High Sensitivity Is a Gift”

The preceding paragraphs merely “borrow” this term. In my view, high sensitivity is a common state of less-than-optimal health. There is no need to fear it; recovery is possible through various forms of care and adjustment. What is called high sensitivity often means “boundaries that are not clear enough, insufficient separation of responsibilities, and an inner core that is not independent or strong enough.” It makes people prone to excessive empathy, preoccupation with other people’s emotions, and inner turmoil. In all kinds of social interactions and work, they often expend their efforts in vain and end up utterly exhausted. This is a very common state among young people. It is often related to defensive insecurity in their early home environment and a reversal of roles in which they had to care for emotionally unstable parents who were volatile, aggressive, or prone to breakdowns. What is needed is to distinguish one’s own responsibilities from those of others, develop independence, strength, and confidence, and build a strong inner core.

The claim that “high sensitivity is a gift” has an element of psychological manipulation: it exploits “highly sensitive people’s” “heightened sensitivity” to “what seems like praise and recognition,” catering to this group. “Highly sensitive person,” meanwhile, is a label—a label that adds to the confusion. I have read the book *Your Sensitivity Is Your Gift*. My objection to it is not that it is pure feel-good fluff, but that its author actually has considerable expertise in psychology and is well versed in the ideas of its various schools. That is why I object to the author inventing a new term like this, one that is somewhat problematic. Writing horoscope-like statements that make people nod along through the “Barnum effect” is unprofessional and dangerous.

III. The “Positive Value” of the Claim That “High Sensitivity Is a Gift” Comes from Accidentally Hitting the Mark:

A. It suggests a “sense of hope”

This sense of hope is real: being able to recognize your own “high sensitivity” means you have already begun developing awareness—of both yourself and your social interactions—and learning about psychology. This is the first step toward healing. With any illness or state of less-than-optimal health, identifying the symptoms and the type of condition is the first step.

A popular claim is that all “highly sensitive babies” are “highly spiritual babies,” and the comments sections brim with enthusiasm. But the awareness described above means only that someone has just discovered their own “spirituality”—that they have brushed against the edges of their own “innate wholeness.” True spirituality means bringing that “innate wholeness” fully into being.

Such a fixation on this sense of hope is an expression of despair. Remaining stuck in feel-good claims like “high sensitivity is a gift,” without taking a further step into the systematic study of psychology, is itself a kind of spiritual numbness.

B. It suggests “accepting one’s fate”: accepting the past and accepting oneself.

C. The positive value of this book lies in its references to many sound psychological ideas

An imperfect analogy would be the Western pharmaceutical ingredients found in some Chinese patent medicines.

What I am saying is: do not settle for these accidental benefits. Study good psychology books systematically. Right understanding, right views, the right path. Let go of this last straw you are clinging to and keep exploring; the shore is just ahead. It is not difficult, nor does it require you to be a highly spiritual baby. Everyone possesses innate wholeness; the mind itself is Buddha, and everyone has the capacity to heal themselves.

D. Highly sensitive people’s numbness to the proletariat, simple goodness, truth, and beauty, small animals, nature, and all the other sources of healing that are everywhere

Numbness to the ever-present signals pointing toward self-help and self-love, and to the ever-present information that supports inner growth and social criticism.

Because of fear, conditioning, ideological imprints, inertia, ingrained habits, and so on.