This evening someone mentioned Dabrowski to me (a psychologist often mentioned in relation to studies on gifted people, and the man who developed the theory of Positive Disintegration), which prompted me to remember something my friend Rena posted on her Livejournal a while back (along with my earlier talk of boundaries). What follows here is part of an article that was included in her original post.
From Environmental Sensitivity: (and I’m not talking about physical sensitivity)
What does it mean to be sensitive? (1) capable of perceiving with a sense or senses, (2) responsive to external conditions or stimulation, (3) susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others, (4) registering very slight differences or changes of condition.
Some people are seemingly predisposed toward extraordinary sensitivity … Born with a tendency to notice more in their environment and deeply reflect on everything before acting … They are also more easily overwhelmed by ‘high volume’ or large quantities of input arriving at once …. Mainly, their brains process information more thoroughly. This processing is not just in the brain, however, since HSPs (highly sensitive persons) have faster reflexes … are more affected by pain, medications, and stimulants; and have more reactive immune systems and more allergies. In a sense, their entire body is designed to detect and understand more precisely whatever comes in.
HSPs are ‘unusually empathetic,’ feeling their own emotions and paying heed to others’ more intensively than other people. They also tend to have rich inner lives (with complex, vivid dreams) and come across as highly perceptive, creative, and intuitive when able to surmount what often is a natural inclination toward shyness, fearfulness, stress, and withdrawal.
Heller proposes the term ‘sensory defensiveness’ to describe individuals who demonstrate a notable inclination toward fearfulness, shyness, stress, and withdrawal.
Over time, sensory defensiveness has a major effect on many bodily functions. The body’s flight-or-fight system is constantly in operation, as the overload of environmental stimuli conditions a chronic stress response. ‘Eventually the immune system is depleted and the body succumbs and breaks down.’ At that point, the stage is set for a variety of ailments, including fatique and depression, sleep difficulties, headaches, tense muscles, decline in sex drive, decreased memory and ability to concentrate, high blood pressure, migraine headaches, IBS, ulcers and similar gastrointenstinal problems, asthma, allergies, skin disorders, and chronic pain.
Hartmann has attempted to explain a broad rangle of sensitivitities through the organizing principle of ‘boundaries.’ He proposes a spectrum of personality types from thick boundary to thin: ‘There are people who strike us as very solid and well organized; they keep everything in its place. They are well defended. They seem rigid, even armored; we sometimes speak of them as ‘thick-skinned.’ Such people, in my view, have very thick boundaries. At the other extreme are people who are especially sensitive, open, or vulnerable. In their minds, things are relatively fluid … Such people have particularly thin boundaries … I propose thick and thin boundaries as a broad way of looking at individual differences.’
Characteristics evident among thin boundary persons are:
• a less solid or definite sense of their skin as a body boundary
• an enlarged sense of merging with another person when kissing or making love
• sensitivity to physical and emotional pain, in oneself as well as in others
• openness to new experience
• a penchant for immersing themselves in something – whether a personal relationship, a memory, or a daydream
• an enhanced ability to recall dreams
• dream content that is highly vivid and emotional
• a tendency to experience nightmares
Thin boundary processing is more like dreaming. “Less straightforward but more flexible” with more connections between regions and thus the proclivity to “explore all kinds of side connections.”
A need for deep connections with other people is one of 5 areas of extreme sensitivity identified by Dabrowski, a Polish psychiatrist interested in personality development. Dabrowski studied “gifted” individuals and notes these recurring traits, which he called overexcitabilities:
* Psychomotor: surplus of energy, restlessness, curiosity.
* Sensual: strong reaction (either positive or negative) to sensory stimuli, aesthetic awareness.
* Imaginational: strong visual thinking, vivid fantasy life, remembers dreams, enjoy poetry or metaphorical speech.
* Intellectual: intense focus on particular topics, enjoys questioning and complex reasoning, problem solving.
* Emotional: heightened emotional reactions, need for strong attachments, empathetic, difficultly adjusting to change.
Both Hartmann & Dabrowski have highlighted the penchant for sensitives to “immerse” themselves in something, be it sensory experience, an intellectual task, or fantasy. This ability, which can occasion the loss of one’s normal sense of time and space, is termed “absorption.” Having a “disposition for having episodes of total attention … result(ing) in a heightened sense of reality of the attentional object, imperviousness to distracting events, and an altered sense of reality in general.”
Absorption is closely related to both hypnotic susceptibility and dissociation (a lack of identification with one’s body and immediate feelings). Lines between what is manifestly real and what is imaginary become blurred as the person becomes immersed in some reverie or experience, to the point he/she can become dissociated from actual bodily feelings during those periods. Such deep experiences are sometimes perceived as mystical or transcendent.
Another jaw-dropping moment for some people?