New research finds highly sensitive people at higher risk of mental health conditions
The University of Surrey has combined 33 previous studies to come out with evidence of the corelation
A new study from the University of Surrey and Queen Mary University of London, has found a correlation between high sensitivity and various mental-health conditions including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), agoraphobia, social phobia and avoidant personality disorder.
The study says that people with high sensitivity tend to process sensory information more deeply, making them more easily overwhelmed and overstimulated, but also more prone to respond better to different psychological therapies compared to those who are less sensitive.
The research combined various other studies in order to come up with conclusive proof about the correlation between the various mental health conditions and sensitivity.
Michael Pluess is a professor in developmental psychology at the University of Surrey. He told us how sensitivity works and what parts of it can lead to mental health problems
"So there's various different aspects to sensitivity. So generally highly sensitive people are more sensitive to their experiences. They perceive more and they seem to process those experiences more deeply. So it really depends on what they experience."
He adds that sensitivity is definitely not always a negative response.#
"If they experience negative things, if they experience maybe, you know, a difficult childhood, or they experience high levels of stress, they're more likely to develop problems.
But also if they experience particularly beneficial environments, if they experience positive experiences, they seem to respond more strongly to that.
The high sensitive people seem to be more vulnerable, more likely to develop mental health problems when exposed to challenges, but they all seem to benefit more from good quality therapy."
Michael also emphasises that there are resources online which can provide further help, but also for people to assess themselves to see whether or not they would be considered as highly sensitive.
"There are questionnaires that we've developed over the last years that they're very straightforward and simple. So we have a website called sensitivity research and people can do a free test on that website and find information about sensitivity as well.
This test will tell you whether you in the high sensitive group, whether you're sort of in the middle or at the lower end
It has been validated so it's fairly accurate but it's a self-assessment. For more objective assessment we would need to have a psychologist doing a standardised interview."