“I always felt different from the others, confides Laura, 29. It was as if I was not in the same world. As if the people around me did not have the same perceptions or the same attentions by relation to others.” Troubled by her “difference”, the young woman began, in her early twenties, to do research on the Internet to better understand herself. Searching the forums and performing several personality tests. “I couldn’t explain my emotions so strong, or why I had trouble managing them and living them,” she says. At 23, she decides to consult a first psychologist. And there, everything becomes clear: “I described to him what I felt on a daily basis and he gave me a diagnosis: I was hypersensitive.” Since then, Laura still lives with emotions that she describes as stronger than average, but has learned to accept them. “Now I no longer hesitate to cry in front of my colleagues if I feel the need to. Too bad if they don’t understand me.”
Lately, Laura has found a community of hypersensitive people on Facebook. Nearly 22,000 people share their experiences on the “Hypersensitive” page, testifying to their distress, their difficulties, encouraging each other. A real support group for these people who, according to estimates, represent between 20 and 30% of the world’s population. Just type “hypersensitive” in the Facebook search bar to find a plethora of groups devoted to the subject. “The circle of Hypersensitive OPTIMISTS” brings together 19,000 people, for example, when the “Hypersensitive and Happy” page was liked by 12,000 Internet users. It’s not just an Internet obsession: hypersensitivity is making headlines in the press, but also in bookstores, where books on the subject have proliferated in recent years. But the concept, although very popular, does not have consensus in the scientific community.
The pioneer
The term hypersensitive emerged in the mainstream sphere in the 1990s, with American psychotherapist Elaine N. Aron, who created the notion of HPS – “highly sensitive person”. The characteristics evoked are first of all a sensory hypersensitivity – when a person has difficulty with noise, light, certain tissues on his skin – which can extend to the emotional level. To simplify, the brain of hypersensitive people, assailed by a myriad of sensations, struggles to manage this overflow of emotions. In order to better live this perpetual state of overstimulation, Elaine N. Aron wrote a book with the evocative title, Hypersensitive, better understand and accept yourself. It is accompanied by a questionnaire which should allow everyone to identify or not with this characteristic. Published in 1996, the book quickly became a bestseller and sold more than 1 million copies. On the strength of this bookstore success, the psychotherapist did not stop there. In the years that followed, Elaine N. Aron published several variations on the theme, with slightly repetitive titles: The Hypersensitive in Love, The Hypersensitive Child, or The Hypersensitive Parent.
A good vein, that others will hasten to borrow. Translated, the works of Elaine N. Aron face competition from books by French-speaking authors, which has exploded in recent years. On the Edistat site, which specializes in book sales statistics in France, there are no less than 70 references with the title “hypersensitive”.
Manuals, shows, notebooks…
All were published between 2011 and 2022, with a marked acceleration in the last five years. Among the star authors in the field, we find the psychoanalyst Saverio Tomasella and his book Too sensitive to be happy, published in January 2016. Or the philosopher Fabrice Midal, author in January 2021 of Am I hypersensitive? Investigation of an unrecognized power, and of Am I hypersensitive? The practical notebook: 40 situations, 40 solutions in October of the same year. “I think this first book changed the situation, it accompanied an awareness,” says the philosopher, who explains that he sold “more than 100,000 copies”. Also a videographer, Fabrice Midal multiplies the videos on the subject: 3 mistakes that all hypersensitive people make (590,000 views) or even How to be a HAPPY hypersensitive” (103,000 views) are among the biggest successes of his channel with 125,000 subscribers.
Others have entered the field. Following the example of the former Robin Hood Maurice Barthélemy, who last year published the essay Strong as a hypersensitive, with coach Charlotte Wils. He even transformed it into a one-man conference show, played at the Pépinière theater in Paris. Notebooks, diaries, shows… Everything is good to better understand your hypersensitivity. Even to the point of being interested in his diet. In his work The fodmap diet for the hypersensitive: anxiety, fears, depression, stress, bloating, gastric burns… foods that soothe”, the endocrinologist-nutrionist Pierre Nys proposes to compose his “ideal plate if your emotions overwhelm you”.
“My agenda is full until May”
“It’s a hot topic, confirms Fabrice Midal enthusiastically. People want to understand.” Specialists on the subject have understood this well: the number of hypersensitivity coaches has exploded since the rise of the concept. Charlotte Wils, co-author of Maurice Barthélemy, benefits from the best referencing on Google. This psychotherapist started coaching in 2010, before specializing in hypersensitive people in 2015. “At that time, I was told that I risked reducing my clientele, that there was no lots of people, she recalls. I had maybe only one or two clients a week at first. Now, my schedule is full until May!” On the program, coaching, “brief therapy” or even hypnosis. Count 80 euros per session, in “face-to-face” or on video, to be able to claim it. But also “workshops” – 90 euros each – in groups.
Its rates differ only slightly from those of another coach also available a few clicks away. “Alexandra coach hypersensitive”, second result in Google, offers for example individual sessions at 75 euros each. If you want to find out whether or not you are hypersensitive, Alexandra also offers a “professional test”, carried out in video, with two appointments of one hour each. All this for no less than 130 euros. The third, Anaïs Landrieu “Hypersensitive Talent”, presents individual workshops that can climb to 120 euros per session for her “enlightened coaching”. And on Doctolib, an online medical appointment booking platform, the number of psychologists mentioning “hypersensitivity” in their descriptions can no longer be counted. Psychology, meditation, sophrology, or other alternative medicine: the accompaniment of the hypersensitive seems to be done in a myriad of ways.
A pleasant qualifier
This lucrative business also offers training opportunities. A Belgian site thus offers a remote “hypersensitivity coach” course – “A job with a future!”, It is specified – lasting three to six months for 239 euros. Yet another provides students with “coaching sessions between peers” during a four-month training course for the modest sum of… 6,000 euros!
How to explain such a proliferation? “I think there are a lot more hypersensitive people than we think, explains Charlotte Wils. We accept the difference more in our society, which allows more and more people to accept themselves as they do. are.” The coach, who encourages “self-diagnosis of the person” – or rather his “knowledge of himself” – thus slips that the upper range of 30% of hypersensitive people in the population is an underestimated figure. “It is not very surprising: when we talk about hypersensitivity, today, we are talking about something with blurred outlines, in which many people can recognize themselves, points out Yves-Alexandre Thalmann, professor of psychology at Saintt College. -Michel in Friborg (Switzerland), and author of an article on the subject in the journal Brains and psycho. Especially since it is not a devaluing concept: it can be pleasant, even pleasant, to recognize oneself as hypersensitive.
An overused term
Especially when this hypersensitivity is linked to other flattering concepts, such as that of high intellectual potential (HPI), very fashionable in the sphere of personal development. On Facebook, groups linking the two terms are legion, such as “HPI. HPE. potential: happy hypersensitive people” (14,000 members). This mixture annoys Fabrice Midal, who rejects this confusion, testimony according to him of a “lack of rigor” in this approach. “The problem is that we use the term hypersensitive as if it meant something specific, when in reality it has no consensual definition in professional psychology”, also warns Yves-Alexandre Thalman. A vagueness that opens the door to various excesses. “Some people might be tempted to use their hypersensitivity to justify emotional ‘malskill’, like an alibi, he continues. But you can learn to live with your emotions without placing yourself in such a straightjacket.”
This use of the term hypersensitive is reminiscent of another concept with dubious psychological roots: the “narcissistic pervert”, which fascinated the crowds in the 2010s. “It’s as old as the world: the media and commercial use of concepts which could be interesting at the start, but which are little by little misguided because they arouse interest, points out Antoine Pelissolo, head of the psychiatry department of the Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil ( Val-de-Marne). Talking about psychological problems is not a fault, on the contrary. It is their industrial exploitation that is more doubtful.” A point of view shared by Yves-Alexandre Thalmann, who however warns: “People who use this label can present a real malaise. But its management can be done without necessarily identifying with an ill-defined concept. ” Too vague, overused, the term hypersensitive could in the long run slow down diagnoses. “It’s good to talk about emotional sensitivity, continues Antoine Pelissolo. But we must not keep people in pain away from more serious solutions, and turn to professionals.” Still need to find the right ones…