The Highly Sensitive Person. Elaine N. Aron

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СКАЧАТЬ these social experiences are positive and supportive, another physiological system develops for which humans are biologically prepared. One could call this the loving system. It creates endorphins, the “good feeling” neuro-chemicals.

      How much could you overcome your fears by trusting others to help? Who was around whom you could rely on? Did you act as if Mother is here so I’ll try? Did you learn to imitate her calming words and deeds, applying them to yourself? “Don’t be afraid, it’ll be okay.” I have seen Rob using all of these methods.

      Now you might spend a moment thinking about yourself and your childhood, and we will do more of this in the next two chapters. I know you don’t really remember, but judging from what facts you have, what was that first year probably like? How does your thinking and self-control affect your sensitivity now? Are there times when you can control your arousal? Who taught you to do so? Who were your role models? Do you think you were taught to control your cautiousness too much so that you dare to do more than your body can handle? Or does it seem that your lesson was that the world is unsafe and over-arousal is uncontrollable?

       How Trust Becomes Mistrust and the Unfamiliar Becomes Dangerous

      Most researchers on temperament have studied short-term arousal. It’s easy to study, for it’s quite apparent from the higher levels of heartbeat, respiration, perspiration, pupil dilation, and adrenaline.

      There is another system of arousal, however, that is governed more by hormones. It goes into action just as quickly, but the effect of its main product, Cortisol, is most noticeable after ten to twenty minutes. An important point is that when Cortisol is present, the short-term arousal response is also even more likely. That is, this long-term type of arousal makes us even more excitable, more sensitive, than before.

      Most of the effects of Cortisol occur over hours or even days. They are mainly measured in the blood, saliva, or urine, so studying long-term arousal is less convenient. But psychologist Megan Gunnar of the University of Minnesota thought that the whole point of the pause-to-check system might be to protect the individual from this unhealthy, unpleasant, long-term arousal.

      Research shows that when people first encounter something new and potentially threatening, the short-term response always comes first. Meanwhile, we start to consider our resources. What are our abilities? What have we learned about this sort of situation from past experiences? Who is around who might help out? If we think we or those with us can cope with the situation, we stop seeing it as a threat. The short-term alert dies out, and the long-term alarm never goes off.

      Gunnar demonstrated this process in an interesting experiment. She set up a threatening situation much like those Kagan uses to identify “inhibited” children. But first, the nine-month-old babies were separated from their mothers for a half hour. Half were left with a very attentive baby-sitter who responded to all of the child’s moods. The other half were left with a baby-sitter who was inattentive and unresponsive unless the child actually fussed or cried. Next, while alone with the babysitter, each nine-month-old was exposed to something startlingly new.

      What is so important here is that only the highly sensitive babies with the inattentive baby-sitters showed more Cortisol in their saliva. It was as if those with the attentive sitter felt they had a resource and had no need to make a long-term stress response.

      Suppose the caretaker is your own mother? Psychologists observing babies with their mothers have discovered certain signs that tell them if a child feels “securely attached.” A secure child feels safe to explore, and new experiences are not usually seen as a threat. Other signs indicate that a child is “insecurely attached.” The mothers of these children are either too protective or too neglectful (or even dangerous). (We will discuss “attachment” more in chapters 3 and 4.) Research on sensitive children facing a novel, startling situation in the company of their mothers has found that these children do show their usual, strong short-term response. But if a sensitive child is securely attached to Mom, there is no long-term Cortisol effect from the stress. Without secure attachment, however, a startling experience will produce long-term arousal.

      One can see why it is important that young HSPs (and older ones, too) stay out in the world, trying things rather than retreating. But their feelings about their caretakers have to be secure and their experiences have to be successful or their reasons not to approach will only be proved true. And all of this gets started before you can even talk!

      Many intelligent, sensitive parents provide all the needed experiences almost automatically. Rob’s parents are constantly praising his successes and encouraging him to test his fears to see if they are realistic while offering help if he needs it. With time, his idea of the world will be that it is not as frightening as his nervous system was telling him it was during that first year or two. His creative traits and intuitive abilities, all the advantages of being sensitive, will flourish. The difficult areas will fade.

      When parents do nothing special to help a sensitive child feel safe, whether the child becomes truly “inhibited” probably depends on the relative strength of the activation and pause-to-check systems. But remember that some parents and environments can make matters much worse. Certainly repeated frightening experiences will strongly reinforce caution, especially experiences of failing to be calmed or helped, of being punished for active exploring, and of having others who should be helpful become dangerous instead.

      Another important point is that the more Cortisol in an infant’s body, the less the child will sleep, and the less sleep, the more Cortisol. In the daytime, the more Cortisol, the more fear, the more fear, the more Cortisol. Uninterrupted sleep at night and timely naps all reduce Cortisol in infants. And remember, lower Cortisol also means fewer short-term alarms. It was easy to see that this was a constant problem with Rob. It may have been for you, too.

      Furthermore, if sleep problems beginning in infancy are not controlled, they may last into adulthood and make a highly sensitive person almost unbearably sensitive. So get your sleep!

       Into the Depths

      There is another aspect of your trait that is harder to capture in studies or observations—except when strange fears and nightmares visit the sensitive child (or adult). To understand this very real aspect of the trait, one leaves the laboratory and enters the consulting room of the depth psychologist.

      Depth psychologists place great emphasis on the unconscious and the experiences imbedded there, repressed or simply preverbal, that continue to govern our adult life. It is not surprising that highly sensitive children, and adults, too, have a hard time with sleep and report more vivid, alarming, “archetypal” dreams. With the coming of darkness, subtle sounds and shapes begin to rule the imagination, and HSPs sense them more. There are also the unfamiliar experiences of the day—some only half-noticed, some totally repressed. All of them swirl in the mind just as we are relaxing the conscious mind so that we can fall asleep.

      Falling asleep, staying asleep, and going back to sleep when awakened require an ability to soothe oneself, to feel safe in the world.

      The only depth psychologist to write explicitly about sensitivity was one of the founders of depth work, Carl Jung, and what he said was important—and exceptionally positive, for a change.

      Way back when psychotherapy began with Sigmund Freud, there was controversy about how much innate temperament shaped personality, including emotional СКАЧАТЬ