DESCRIPTION: Anyone who describes themselves as highly sensitive is referring to a construct that has been controversial since the 1990s. What the Highly Sensitive Person Scale measures, and how it overlaps with narcissism.

High Sensitivity Under Scrutiny: The State of Research, HSPS Factors and Narcissism

High sensitivity is regarded as an innate trait in which everything is experienced more intensely. Noises, smells, art, moods, criticism, conflicts, and the overwhelming feeling of being overburdened after a full day are said to affect highly sensitive people more strongly than others. Research supports this view only to a limited extent. The scale used to measure high sensitivity is divided into sections that point to different personality traits. The widespread notion of uniformly heightened perception is hardly consistent with the way the nervous system functions. And the part of the scale that covers feeling overwhelmed and the need to protect one’s own nervous system clearly overlaps with the concept of vulnerable narcissism. This does not dispute either the exhaustion or the sensitivity to stimuli experienced by those who describe themselves as highly sensitive. Both occur and can restrict everyday life. What is questionable is the name under which these very different conditions are grouped. The name suggests an innate way of perceiving the world. Measurements, clinical experience and everyday language all point in different directions.

What does the construct of ‘high sensitivity’ claim?

In 1997, Elaine Aron introduced the term ‘sensory processing sensitivity’. She used it to describe an innate temperamental trait: deeper processing, a tendency to become easily overstimulated, sensitivity to subtle differences, and heightened responsiveness to both internal and external stimuli. Her non-fiction book transformed this research term into the concept of the highly sensitive person, or HSP for short. The figure often cited is twenty to thirty per cent of the population. High sensitivity is not a diagnosis in any classification system. Neither the ICD nor the DSM lists it. However, this does not rule out a personality trait. It does, however, distinguish the HSP self-description from disorders for which criteria, course patterns, exclusion criteria, and symptoms are defined. The popular version has drifted even further from Aron’s theory.

What remains is a statement about sensory perception: the same world, the same categories, the same words – everything amplified by a factor. Someone hears sounds, smells odours, senses moods and experiences criticism more intensely than others. The content of perception remains unchanged. The claim is not that attention is distributed differently, that importance is assigned differently, or that one sensory channel is linked to another. It is: ‘Everything is experienced more intensely.’ This poses a problem. Other descriptions of neurodiversity always also concern the form of processing. In autism, attention, meaning attribution, and the processing of social cues may be altered. In alexithymia, access to one’s own emotional state is restricted. In synesthesia, sensory channels that would otherwise remain separate become linked. High sensitivity posits an intensification in which the content of perception remains entirely unremarkable. This is precisely why it is so easy to describe: everyone is familiar with noise, criticism, hurt feelings, exhaustion and withdrawal. The HSP narrative attributes these to a single characteristic.

Why talk of general intensification does not apply to

The nervous system has many ways of filtering, weighting and assigning meaning to stimuli. Thalamic filtering, inhibitory interneurons in the cerebral cortex, noradrenaline and acetylcholine, attention, expectation and habituation all interplay in this process. Sight, hearing, smell, touch, pain, internal sensations and social stimuli do not travel via the same channel or the same ‘volume control’. The popular HSP terminology summarises these processes too broadly. It suggests a uniform increase across all sensory channels, emotions and social signals. There is no physiological basis for such uniformity. Stimulus processing depends on sensory modality, situation, prior experience, attention, sleep, stress, pain and expectation.

Someone who can barely tolerate noise after a day’s work may find themselves sitting in a concert the next morning. Someone who reacts sensitively to criticism may tolerate bright light without difficulty. These differences require explanation. The expression ‘everything more intensely’ does not fit. Even greater central irritability would not result in a clear excess of stimulus intensity. As general signal perception increases, so does the background noise. Habituation to recurring stimuli may fail; stimuli may compete more strongly for attention; and recovery may become more difficult. Conditions in which hyperstimulation actually plays a role are rarely pleasant: migraines, chronic pain with central sensitisation, trauma-associated hyperarousal states and sensory sensitivity on the autism spectrum can make light, noise, touch and social proximity equally difficult to tolerate. They lead to exhaustion, avoidance and impaired functioning. The objection is therefore directed against the appealing image of selective sensitivity to stimuli, which simultaneously explains suffering, promises a unique perception, yet remains largely spared from the consequences of generally heightened arousal. Sensitivity to stimuli does exist; however, amplifying individual types of stimuli without any loss of filtering, habituation, or resilience does not.

What does the Highly Sensitive Person Scale measure?

The Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) usually measures high sensitivity. This is a self-assessment questionnaire. Psychometric studies have repeatedly identified several dimensions. Three factors frequently emerge: - Ease of Excitation: the tendency to feel quickly overwhelmed by demands, time pressure, a flood of stimuli or surprises. - Low Sensory Threshold: sensitivity to bright light, noise, strong odours, rough fabrics or sirens. - Aesthetic Sensitivity: responsiveness to art, music, nature and subtle impressions. In addition, one-, two-, five- and six-factor models have been published. Beyond the technical details, the picture that emerges varies depending on which sample is studied and how the items are modelled. A total score can therefore represent two completely different profiles: high aesthetic responsiveness with low sensitivity to overstimulation, or high sensitivity to overstimulation with low aesthetic responsiveness. The three domains also point in different directions externally. Aesthetic Sensitivity is clearly linked to openness to experience. In Jauk and colleagues’ data, correlations range from approximately 0.44 to 0.50. Ease of Excitation and Low Sensory Threshold are more strongly linked to neuroticism. The term ‘high sensitivity’ overlooks these differences, even though the scale does not necessitate a fixed unit. It is therefore crucial to consider how a high HSPS score arises. Artistic receptivity, aversion to physical stimuli and the expectation of being overwhelmed by demands are not necessarily linked, either psychologically or clinically.

High Sensitivity and Vulnerable Narcissism

In 2022, Emanuel Jauk, Madita Knödler, Julia Frenzel, and Philipp Kanske revisited a question Aron and Aron posed in 1997: How does high sensitivity relate to neuroticism, attachment, and narcissism? They published the study in 2023 in the *Journal of Clinical Psychology*. It comprised a German convenience sample of 280 participants and a British sample of 310 participants that was representative in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. The correlations are clear. The study found a significant overlap between high HSPS scores and a vulnerable, easily offended form of narcissism. It did not find that high sensitivity is ‘actually narcissism’ or that a high HSPS score indicates a narcissistic personality disorder.

However, the HSPS and measures of vulnerable or hypersensitive narcissism are clearly correlated. In two independent samples, the correlations ranged from r = .44 to r = .54. Put, this means that those who score highly on the High Sensitivity Scale also report, on average, characteristics such as being easily offended, having fragile self-esteem, withdrawing in the face of criticism, and feeling that others do not take them seriously enough.

A value of r = .54 indicates a strong correlation in personality research. However, it does not imply equivalence. When converted to shared variance, this gives r² = .29: around 29 per cent of what both scales measure overlaps. Around 71 per cent remain distinct. High sensitivity and vulnerable narcissism therefore share a considerable overlap, but they also capture different experiences and behaviours.

Part of the correlation is linked to neuroticism. Here, neuroticism refers to a general tendency to experience stress, criticism, uncertainty and negative emotions more intensely. When the authors statistically controlled for this common factor, the correlations became weaker but did not disappear. For hypersensitive narcissism, the correlations were then still r=.34 and r=.35; for vulnerable narcissism, they were r=.24 and r=.30. The overlap is therefore partly due to general emotional vulnerability. However, this does not fully account for it.

One can visualise the two scales as two circles:

·        The first circle encompasses aesthetic sensitivity, sensory overload, sensitivity to light, noise or criticism, and a tendency to experience situations as overwhelming.

·        The second circle encompasses being easily offended, vulnerable self-esteem, withdrawal, shame, and the expectation that others should take one’s vulnerability into particular account.

·        The circles visibly overlap, but they are not identical.

A high HSPS score can therefore mean very different things. In one person, it may stem primarily from a responsiveness to art, music and nature. In another person, it may stem from being quickly overwhelmed, avoidance and the experience of being hurt by criticism or demands. It was precisely the second profile that was closer to vulnerable narcissism in the study. More recent research describes various profiles of high sensitivity accordingly; high ‘ease of excitation’ coupled with comparatively low aesthetic sensitivity was associated with vulnerable and hypersensitive narcissism.

Correlation thus describes an overlap between self-descriptions and personality traits. It does not permit a diagnosis in individual cases, nor does it allow high sensitivity to be equated with narcissism. A narcissistic personality disorder certainly does not follow from an HSPS score.

Accordingly, the study identifies an overlap between self-descriptions and personality traits: emotional sensitivity, withdrawal, vulnerability of self-esteem, introversion and increased symptom burden. Grandiose narcissism largely disappeared once the vulnerable component was statistically controlled for. A general sense of entitlement showed no correlation in the first study. It is precisely here that the limitations of the observation lie. It concerns a vulnerable, shame-prone aspect of self-esteem regulation that is dependent on consideration from others. The HSPS does not address the hostile, exploitative or demonstratively superior side of narcissism.

The ‘Ease of Excitation’ factor

The link between high sensitivity and vulnerable narcissism lies almost entirely in one part of the scale: ‘Ease of Excitation’. This refers to the tendency to feel overwhelmed quickly and to organise one’s daily life to avoid stressful situations.

It was here that the correlations with hypersensitive narcissism were strongest: r=.57 in the German sample and r=.59 in the British sample. These are high values. On average, people with high scores on this scale also reported greater sensitivity to criticism, vulnerability to attacks on their self-esteem, withdrawal, and feeling that those around them did not sufficiently take them into account.

For ‘Low Sensory Threshold’ – that is, sensitivity to noise, bright light, smells or certain substances – the values were lower but still significant: r=.42 and r=.44.

For ‘Aesthetic Sensitivity’ – responsiveness to music, art, nature and subtle impressions – the values were considerably lower at r=.23 and r=.30. The aspect of high sensitivity relating to artistic receptivity therefore has far less to do with vulnerable narcissism than the aspect concerning feeling overwhelmed and the need for protection.

What the anchor item describes

A key item in ‘Ease of Excitation’ essentially states that a person organises their life, as a top priority, in such a way as to avoid stressful and overwhelming situations.

This implies more than simply stating: ‘Noise bothers me’ or ‘I perceive colours and music intensely.’ The statement describes a way of life geared towards avoiding anticipated excessive demands. Stressful situations are recognised early on, avoided or modified so that they do not place excessive demands on the individual. One’s own stability then depends more heavily on how carefully one navigates one’s environment and how much consideration others show.

The authors see this as a link between sensitivity and self-image: a person perceives themselves as vulnerable and, as a result, develops the expectation that their environment must take this vulnerability into account. This is not a character assessment of every highly sensitive person. It describes a pattern that occurred frequently among some respondents.

Three groups instead of one

The authors grouped the participants from both studies using latent class analysis. This method identifies groups with similar response patterns, rather than lumping all people with a high overall score together.

The overall ‘highly sensitive’ rating can therefore mask at least two very different realities. Some of the respondents were particularly receptive to aesthetic experiences. Others described a life centred on feeling overwhelmed, hurt, exhausted and avoidance.

Entitlement Rage

The HSPS also correlated with ‘entitlement rage’: r=.33 and r=.40. This refers to anger that arises when someone feels deprived of something or not treated as they believe they are entitled to be.

This does not prove that people who consider themselves highly sensitive harbour hidden hostility. It highlights a potential tension: those who perceive themselves as exceptionally vulnerable may expect special consideration. If this consideration is lacking, disappointment can turn into anger. The study attributes this correlation primarily to the ‘Ease of Excitation’ factor; the correlation coefficients for ‘Entitlement Rage’ were r=.35 and r=.44.

Practical distinction

In everyday life, one question is more helpful than the debate over the label:

Is the focus on being moved by art, music, nature and subtle observations, or on the expectation that demands, criticism, crowds and conflicts will become unbearable?

Both experiences can coexist. However, they describe different ways of experiencing the world. The first points to aesthetic receptivity. The second points to feeling overwhelmed, avoidance, vulnerability to self-esteem issues and coping with demands from the environment. In the study, this second pattern was more closely associated with vulnerable and hypersensitive narcissism.

The strange ease of self-description

Divergent perceptions create communication problems. Those with specialised interests find it difficult to explain why a particular topic pushes all other demands out of their consciousness. Those who are alexithymic often cannot find the words to describe their own emotional state. Those who prioritise social importance differently from those around them encounter recurring incomprehension. The common language is insufficient in some instances. This is the well-known ‘double empathy’ problem.

Strangely enough, high sensitivity hardly impairs this mutual understanding between those affected and those who are not. Their descriptions remain universally understandable and unambiguous: noises are too loud, conflicts are exhausting, criticism cuts deep, crowds are draining, art moves them. Every listener recognises the experience and can agree. At the same time, the experience is elevated to the status of an innate difference.

Its full comprehensibility is not a refutation. It does, however, explain part of its success. A statement about the intensity of one’s sensations defies comparison. No one can step into another person’s inner world and check whether the same music, the same smell or the same remark strikes them there with greater intensity by a certain factor. The claim remains incomparable and thus difficult to refute. It owes its persuasive power to its comprehensibility, which, however, simultaneously renders it inaccessible to any external observation.

Those who are truly hypersensitive and rarely speak of it

HSPS is also linked to autistic traits and alexithymia. Both of these associations are more pronounced in ‘Ease of Excitation’ and ‘Low Sensory Threshold’ than in ‘Aesthetic Sensitivity’. This draws attention to people whose sensory sensitivity does not appear to be a positive trait, because they lack the linguistic means to access their own experiences or can only do so at a late stage. In cases of autism, ADHD and their combination, noises, light, touch, textures, smells and social interactions can indeed be physically distressing. The difficulty then often lies in recognising and communicating one’s own experience in real time. Only after a party, a team meeting, or a shopping trip does someone realise their body has long since been overwhelmed. What remains are concrete statements: ‘The light hurts.’ The noise is making me ill. After twenty minutes in a crowd, I can’t cope any longer.’ It is far more difficult to talk about inner confusion, delayed emotional perception, or incomprehensible reactions. Such patients rarely come seeking recognition as highly sensitive. They come because of exhaustion, social breakdowns, constant overload or a diagnosis they have been putting off for years. The ‘HSP’ label is linguistically helpful for those who can articulate their inner life fluently. Those with the most pronounced differences in perception and self-perception often lack this vocabulary.

Salpêtrière, platforms and public discourse

In the 19th century, the Salpêtrière in Paris was a vast state-run institution for the poor, the elderly, the chronically ill and those with mental health conditions. In the 1870s, the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot took over as head of a department there. Charcot was one of Europe’s most famous doctors. He sought to show that hysteria was not a pretence, a mere moral weakness, or an exclusively female peculiarity, but a physically recognisable clinical condition with recurring patterns.

To this end, he needed visible forms. He had seizures observed, broken down into successive phases, sketched, photographed and presented to an audience. His weekly ‘Lèçons du mardi’ – the Tuesday lectures – attracted doctors, students, writers, artists and foreign visitors. Female patients were presented there whilst in the throes of a crisis, hypnotised, questioned and discussed as clinical cases. The institution served as a hospital, lecture theatre, laboratory and stage all at once.

Photographs held special status in this context. Between 1876 and 1880, a multi-volume work entitled *Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière* was published. It brought together case histories, images and drawings of female patients to whom specific phases of a hysterical fit were attributed: rigidity, contortion, dramatic postures, ecstasy, fear, supplication or collapse. Paul Regnard took many of the early photographs. Albert Londe later headed the Salpêtrière’s photographic studio and became a pioneer of medical motion photography; he contributed to the *Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière*, which began publication in 1888. [

Georges Didi-Huberman has described this connection in *The Invention of Hysteria*. He argues that Charcot or his female patients did not simply invent hysteria, but that there was an interplay: Doctors devised an image of the hysterical fit; the female patients, within an institution characterised by clear expectations and significant dependencies, were required to respond to this image; photographs captured the successful scenes; and the printed series of images subsequently served as proof that the fit took precisely this fixed form. The image thus did not merely document an illness. It helped bring into being the form it later intended to substantiate.

Hysteria did not disappear. Its physical and sensory changes were continued under F44 as dissociative disorders (conversion disorders), that is, under a different name. The need for attention, theatricality and the emotionalisation of relationships was assigned the code F60.4 (histrionic personality disorder) in ICD-10. The new ICD-11 removed the second name, though not necessarily all the phenomena that were once described under it.

Neurasthenia, too, demonstrates that this process did not begin with social media platforms. Since the late 19th century, it has grouped exhaustion, headaches, insomnia, irritability, anxiety and digestive complaints under the concept of ‘exhausted nerves’. George Beard called it the disease of modernity. The telegraph, newspapers, big cities, competition and mental labour had, he argued, sapped the nervous energy of the most advanced societies. The diagnosis gave ordinary and more severe ailments a form that made them interpretable in medical, social, and cultural terms.

Neurasthenia gave real ailments a language and, at the same time, determined who was permitted to appear as sick within that language. Those who were overworked could see themselves as victims of a civilisation whose pace exhausted them. This elevated suffering: it could be regarded as a consequence of education, work, sensitivity, and participation in modernity; the category organised symptoms, self-image, and social standing into a single narrative of the social elites.

Neurasthenia and hysteria, however, were not neutral terms for two natural phenomena. They were narratives constructed by a medical elite concerning the appropriate form of suffering for a social elite. Neurasthenia gave the educated citizen an honourable language for exhaustion: his nerves were deemed worn out because he was particularly exposed to the demands of the modern world. Hysteria and its successor, histrionics, offered the opposite interpretation of visible emotion, the body and demeanour: here, suffering appeared as excess, theatricality or a lack of self-control.

Even Charcot’s female patients with hysteria at the Salpêtrière, however, were predominantly poor women, and many of his male patients were labourers and tradespeople. The elites did not suffer alone. But they had at their disposal the institutions, images and concepts through which it was determined which form of suffering was interpreted as a refined nervous weakness and which as hysteria.

The same pattern can be recognised today. Those affected exhibit exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed, irritability and withdrawal. Doctors, self-help authors, platforms, coaches and algorithms provide the names, images and narratives through which this experience acquires social meaning. High sensitivity, too, links these symptoms to a positive self-description. Exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed and avoidance of stimuli are interpreted as the price of a special receptivity. The difference lies in the vocabulary. Neurasthenia spoke of depleted nervous energy; high sensitivity speaks of an innate openness to stimuli. Both frameworks make a diffuse form of suffering comprehensible, confer dignity upon it, and explain why the person affected, in particular, suffers from demands that others apparently endure.

This history is therefore of interest to the present day because psychological suffering always takes on a public form. What is displayed, affirmed, repeated and rewarded takes on a form that others can adopt. The Salpêtrière provides, in a sense, an analogous historical form, comparable to social media platforms. It shows how diagnosis, image, audience and self-presentation can shape one another: someone offers an experience in a recognisable form. Others confirm it, adopt words and gestures, and add their own variations. The platforms’ algorithm rewards versions that trigger ‘likes’, recognition and identification. The successful formulation becomes part of a category.

The successful formulation becomes part of a category. The difference from history lies in how roles are distributed. Today, the patient, the performer, the diagnostician and the audience are often the same platform users. The most communicatively successful form becomes visible. The biologically or clinically most typical form does not necessarily have to be visible.

Information on ADHD and HSP

A vast body of literature on ADHD counters popular prejudices. CHADD, the Child Mind Institute, Harvard Health and ADDitude refute the claims that ADHD is an invention of the pharmaceutical industry, the result of poor parenting, an expression of laziness or a problem exclusive to boys. The sheer volume of such educational texts does not, by itself, prove anything.

ADHD awareness aims to promote recognition of the condition, diagnosis, treatment and support. HSP awareness affirms the positive value of sensitivity. It reassures people that high sensitivity is not a weakness, not hypersensitivity, not a disorder and not a form of overreaction. Sensitivity is seen as a hidden strength. This creates a different kind of conflict. A stigma often leads to withdrawal, because any public statement seems to confirm the derogatory label. A positive identity claim requires defence when its status is contested. That is why the pre-emptive rejection of overreaction, taking offence or dramatisation is a staple of many HSP texts.

Who stands to gain from high sensitivity?

In the English-speaking world, Highly Sensitive Refuge accounts for a large proportion of the audience reach. Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo run the site. Both also sell non-fiction books on the subject. According to their own figures, the site reaches 1.3 million readers a month. Alongside this, they offer personality tests, blogs, counselling services, and private practices, using HSP-related content to attract clients.

In German-speaking countries, the term is linked to a training market. Private institutes and academies offer certificates for HSP coaches, specialist counsellors for high sensitivity and high sensitivity therapists. Anyone selling a certificate needs a category that endures and gains recognition. This does not imply any psychological judgement about individual providers. It explains why texts that defend and promote the category serve an economic function. It is striking to note who is raising the controversy: science publications such as *Spektrum der Wissenschaft*, *Quarks* and *Apotheken Umschau*. They sell neither HSP tests nor HSP training courses. Their texts are not free from oversimplification. However, their business model does not depend on stabilising the term.

What remains

The symptoms described under the label of high sensitivity can be examined within familiar contexts: social anxiety, anxious-avoidant traits, trauma with hypervigilance, depressive exhaustion, migraine, late-diagnosed autism in women, ADHD with emotional dysregulation, AuDHS or neuroticism without clinical significance. Each possibility raises different questions about onset, triggers, the body, relationships, and avoidance. In the case of social anxiety, sensitivity is often directed towards judgement, criticism, shame and specific groups.

In the case of trauma-related consequences, this sensitivity often follows a recognisable logic of threat: specific voices, spaces, glances or situations trigger alarm. Sensory hyper-reactivity, by contrast, centres on sound, texture, light, or smell; it often dates back to childhood and remains independent of who is observing. This distinction achieves more than a mere dispute over the term ‘high sensitivity’.

Nor does ‘stimulus reduction’ have a uniform meaning. In cases of sensory hyper-reactivity, it may be necessary. In cases of social anxiety and avoidance behaviour, however, it can perpetuate a condition, as it provides short-term relief whilst leaving the anticipated danger unaddressed. In the case of trauma-related consequences, withdrawal can stabilise hyperarousal if it becomes a permanent organising principle. The decision therefore requires a precise description of what is being avoided, when it began, and what sustains the avoidance. A construct without its own substance loses its clinical significance.

High sensitivity bundles together experiences that must be taken seriously. The term itself spares us the labour of differentiation. It turns sensory pain, artistic sensitivity, exhaustion, fragile self-esteem, social anxiety and feeling overwhelmed into a single trait. This is its social strength and its theoretical weakness.

Key points in brief

•            High sensitivity is not listed as a diagnosis in either the ICD or the DSM.

•            The HSPS does not represent a clearly stable overall construct. One-, two-, three-, five-, and six-factor models have been published.

•            Aesthetic Sensitivity is linked to openness to experience. Ease of Excitation and Low Sensory Threshold are more closely related to neuroticism.

•            The popular notion that all stimuli and emotions are perceived with equal intensity by HSPs is hardly consistent with the nervous system’s domain- and situation-dependent processing of stimuli.

•            In two studies, the HSPS correlated with hypersensitive narcissism at r = .53 and r = .54, and with vulnerable narcissism at r = .44 and r = .54. These correlations remained significant after controlling for neuroticism.

•            The link stems primarily from ‘ease of excitation’, that is, from a tendency towards being overwhelmed and avoidance.

•            A latent class analysis distinguished a group characterised by aesthetic responsiveness and low narcissism scores from a group characterised by high hyperexcitability and elevated vulnerable narcissism.

•            Actual sensory over-reactivity can occur in autism, ADHD, AuDHS, migraine, pain syndromes or trauma-associated over-arousal. The HSP label is no substitute for a proper assessment.

•            Public narratives about HSPs arise from an interplay of self-expression, validation, repetition and platform dynamics.

•            Stimulus avoidance can be protective in cases of genuine sensory overload. In cases of anxiety and trauma-related avoidance, however, it can perpetuate the distress.

Sources

·        Aron, E. N., & Aron, A. (1997). Sensory-processing sensitivity and its relation to introversion and emotionality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(2), 345–368.

·        Jauk, E., Knödler, M., Frenzel, J., & Kanske, P. (2023). Do highly sensitive persons display hypersensitive narcissism? Similarities and differences in the nomological networks of sensory processing sensitivity and vulnerable narcissism. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 79(1), 228–254.

·        Smolewska, K. A., McCabe, S. B., & Woody, E. Z. (2006). A psychometric evaluation of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale: The components of sensory- -processing sensitivity and their relation to the BIS/BAS and the Big Five. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(6), 1269–1279.

·        Grimen, H. L., & Diseth, Å. (2016). Sensory processing sensitivity: Factors of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale and their relationships to personality traits. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 57(4), 304–312.

·        Didi-Huberman, G. (1982). The Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière. Paris: Macula.

·        Spektrum der Wissenschaft. High sensitivity: The debate over sensitivity.

·        Quarks. High sensitivity: Does it exist?

·        Apotheken Umschau. High sensitivity: How it manifests itself and what helps those affected.

·        Highly Sensitive Refuge. About Us.

·        CHADD. ADHD Myths and Misunderstandings.

·        IEK Berlin. Training as a Highly Sensitive Person Therapist and HSP Coach.

Related

• Highly Sensitive Personality (HSP): Current Research on High Sensitivity

• High sensitive Persons (HSP): living with intense perceptions and challenges

• High sensitivity: Perception, exhaustion and everyday life

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• Narcissism: obvious and hidden signs and narcissistic personality disorder