Identify hypersensitivity and welcome it, advice from a coach

January 13 is the World hypersensitivity day, an emotional peculiarity that would concern 1 in 5.

For these hypersensitive, everyday life can quickly take on the air of ordeal: faced with the feeling of being different from others and of living out of step, the hypersensitive will tend to to fall back on itself or to seek at adapt your behavior to be “like everyone else”. But the hypersensitive cannot escape the reality of his personality, and the sooner he identifies and accepts this hypersensitivity, the sooner he can move forward on the path of reconstruction.. This is the opinion of Charlotte Wils, certified coach and psychopractor, author and speaker : after a hybrid course and 12 years of training in various techniques and disciplines, Charlotte is today a recognized specialist in supporting hypersensitive people, and she entrusted us with her expertise for the time of an article devoted to deciphering hypersensitivity.

Higher than average sensitivity

For the psychopractor who co-wrote the book Strong as a hypersensitive, hypersensitivity is defined above all as “an ability to perceive information”. A kind of additional filter which exists in some people and is exercised at several levels: “First there is hypersensitivity sensory, therefore an increased perception through the senses; then hypersensitivity cognitive with a differentiated operation, that is to say in a tree structure but also in depth; and hypersensitivity intuitive, with a great capacity for intuition”.

While the term “hypersensitivity” is today often overused, it is more than ever necessary to remember not only what hypersensitivity is, but also what she is not, as Charlotte Wils points out:

It is very often taken for sentimentality, which it is not. It is not either a weakness, nor a pathology, and even less one sickness. We’re not trying to cure it, in fact. It’s a peculiarity in the same way that there are left-handed and right-handed people, people with red hair and other blondes. It is a difference, but which is not visible to the naked eye, this is all its peculiarity.

If we do not speak of “diagnosis” or “symptoms”, hypersensitivity is neither a disease nor a pathology, we can on the other hand establish a field of common characteristics : feeling of being out of step with others often occurring from childhood, great empathy, strong attachment to the values ​​of integrity, loyalty and fidelity appear, among others, among the identifying elements. So many elements often difficult to integrate at a young age, for children who go “perceive the emotions of others without necessarily distinguishing them from their own” Where “feel a sense of injustice in many situations”.

To read also: “My father noted the days when I did not cry”: testimony of Jennifer, hypersensitive

For all of these reasons, hypersensitivity is often considered the transposition of the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) in the field of emotion.

Not one, but hypersensitivities

The birth of a concept often generates a desire to precisely limit the subject, to properly categorize its field of application. An error which also applies to the notion of hypersensitivity and which the coach deplores: “There are really several types and degrees of hypersensitivity. The hypersensitive are not born in a box where they all have the same characteristics. We can consider that there are as many hypersensitivity as there are hypersensitive”. Hypersensitivity therefore asserts itself as a peculiarity that modulates according to individuals.

However, it is interesting to note that two main trends in profiles stand out among the hypersensitive. Charlotte Wils calls on the work of Elaine Aron, an American psychologist and researcher specializing in hypersensitivity, who identifies two types of hypersensitivity: introverts, and the others, more rare and difficult to recognize, extroverts. The latter, which would represent 30% of hypersensitive, undergo, for the psychopractor, a double sentence :

They expose themselves more and, they are therefore doubly impacted because we will address them much more easily, frequently, and without taking any precaution. They’re going to have more interactions, so it’s going to hurt them more.

When we dwell on the characteristics of hypersensitive people, we cannot help but be struck by similarities with other personality typologies like the gifted, also referred to by the notions of “zebras” or “HPI” (High Intellectual Potential). In her office, the certified coach confirms that she has received these profiles who are hypersensitive. With them, it is moreover their sensitivity rather than their intellectual capacities, which puts them in difficulty.

Hypersensitivity is definitely not not a waterproof category, but a spectrum without real limits which can very well overlap with other spectra. It is in this sense that Charlotte Wils is convinced by the fact of favor the concept of degrees in hypersensitivity, in order to scale this very particular perception of the world without stigmatizing her, without enclosing it, and to value the variable that characterizes it:

This notion of degrees is very important becausewe are not equal in our sensitivity. Some will have a more developed sensitivity in terms of taste, others will be hearing, still others will perceive visual details… This is what fundamentally makes the richness of humanity, let us not forget!

This is also what pushes the psychopractor to mobilize the notion of “cursor” : if the effects of hypersensitivity vary according to the situation and the personality, know how to modulate this particularity can be beneficial to better cohabit with it.

Progressive hypersensitivity

Hypersensitivity is not an easy notion to define, as much by the hybridity of its characteristics as by the diversity of its expressions. But another element further complicates its spectrum: its evolutionary dimension.

If nothing today proves that hypersensitivity is written in the genes, on the other hand, there are many factors that contribute to its awakening and development, whether it’s education or the environment in which we grow up: “At present, there is no evidence of the genetic transmission of hypersensitivity. But, in our offices, we can often see siblings, or parents and their children”Observes Charlotte Wils, which clearly reveals a family breeding ground for hypersensitivity. This personality asserts itself as a piece of data in movement, on which emotional and social experiences have an impact:

Hypersensitivity, which for me is innate, can then being challenged in certain relationship situations or certain family environments. And, in these situations, the family will believe that it is hypersensitivity the problem, whereas it very often comes from the interactions which generate the installation of defense mechanisms.

That said, nothing is set in stone, and, beyond psycho-social experiences, the subject’s will can greatly influence the nature and expressions of hypersensitivity. This is a reality that the coach was able to face in her practice: “I have patients who tell me “I was very introverted, I struggled with that when I was young and now I do public speaking.” There are a lot of hypersensitive people who take their lives. in hand and meet important challenges”.

Identify and welcome hypersensitivity

How then to learn to live with this sensitivity so complex? Before being able to live with it, it is essential to be able to identify it, from an early age. : “We can soon assume a hypersensitivity: sensitivity to odors, or to itchy clothes, can be micro indices. But it is important not to pose a “diagnosis” or an identity stopped too young, to leave the capacity to the child or the teenager to evolve in his nature of hypersensitive.”.

For Charlotte Wils, early identification is beneficial for the child, but especially for the parent who will be better able to support them and help them flourish with this difference:

It is important that the parent knows this. The fact that the child knows it is not very urgent. He shouldn’t feel like he has a problem. It happens that the parents that I see with their child already have a whole journey, with consultation of psychologists, sometimes even psychiatrists. Often times, I mainly do sensitivity parenting.

You might think that identifying hypersensitivity is only the start of a very long process, but it is not necessarily the case: “Very often, the recognition of hypersensitivity is an answer to many questions, and it is already a foothold in therapeutic support”Explains the psychopractor. Of course, the subject is not bent, not everything is settled with a snap of a finger, but this discovery often works as a salutary trigger :

It’s helpful because, before, we think we have a problem, and afterwards, we say to ourselves: “ah okay, is that what ?!”. And suddenly, having no more problem to solve, we can start living what we are. There is a weight that comes off: we stop looking behind, and everything aligns, the whole puzzle fits together, all things make sense and take their place.

According to the needs of the hypersensitive person, and his desire to get to know himself better, support can be set up. If there are cognitive and behavioral therapies, within the scope of psychotherapy, Charlotte Wils claims an approach all of her own, which she describes as holistic. The idea? “Take the person as a whole, whether at the bodily, mental and even spiritual level”. The way ? Implement support at the intersection of several disciplines : verbal and body therapy, art therapy, hypnosis, sophrology … The coach, who has not stopped training for more than 10 years, constantly renews her approach to hypersensitivity by evolving in her practices:

It’s important for me to work on integrative therapy, where we aggregate as much as possible to meet the client’s needs. Our tools are not there to demonstrate, but to serve the customer.

Charlotte therefore mobilizes a combination of disciplines in her practice: the brief theory of Palo Alto, a method “backwards from psychoanalysis, so that it is rather short“, but also NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) which aims to work on things rooted in childhood and “modify some programming that bothers us“, as well as the RITMO – Reprocessing of Traumatic Information by Eye Movements – which “acts, in the brain, on the sphere of emotions in order to modify the sensation” or hypnosis.

If humans still have a long way to go to accept their sensitive DNA, the psychopractor keeps the course of a horizon which does not cease, in her eyes, to emerge : “Society is changing, and we are moving towards the enhancement of a happy hypersensitivity. For decades, we have tried to stifle sensitivity in people, in businesses, in families, everywhere. But today, that is changing, the turn has already been taken. I would like that, in some time, this is no longer a subject, but something that is part of our daily life”.