I'm starting this new thread in response to another conversation http://mentalpod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11795.
For anyone not familiar with the term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), aka Sensory Processing Sensitivity, here's a brief definition from Wikipedia:
Think you or someone you know might be HSP? Take the test here: http://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a personality trait characterized by a high level of sensitivity to external stimuli. The trait tends to correlate with a greater depth of cognitive processing and high emotional reactivity. A human with a particularly high measure of SPS is considered to be a highly sensitive person (HSP). The terms SPS and HSP were coined in the mid-1990s by psychologists Elaine Aron and husband Arthur Aron, with SPS being measured by Aron's Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) questionnaire. Other researchers have applied various other terms to denote this responsiveness to stimuli that is evidenced in humans and other species.
According to the Arons and colleagues, people with high SPS make up about 15–20% of the population and are thought to process sensory data more deeply due to the nature of their central nervous system. Although many researchers consistently related high SPS to negative outcomes, Aron and colleagues state that high SPS is a personality trait and not a disorder; other researchers have associated it with increased responsiveness to both positive and negative influences
