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Highly Sensitive Humans Podcast
The Highly Sensitive Humans Podcast offers insight into the world of the Highly Sensitive Person, and helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to feel more empowered and resilient without denying their authentic gifts.
Highly Sensitive Humans Podcast
Is the Highly Sensitive Person the same as Autism Spectrum Disorder?
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In today's episode, I speak with Robert Siegers exploring, 'Is the Highly Sensitive Person the same as Autism Spectrum Disorder?' We discuss the similarities, differences and overlapping traits with the purpose of opening up a dialogue around this important topic.
We also explore the purpose and potential limitations of using labels and diagnosis. We discuss the importance of understanding neurodiversity with the intention and goal of delving into the lived experience of being highly sensitive and how it may overlap or intertwine with other diagnoses - ultimately, respecting and honouring the diversity of our human experience.
Robert is a highly sensitive person and entrepreneur from Germany. He is the host of the UNDERSTANDABLE podcast. On his channel, he talks about mental health topics such as high sensitivity and other neurodivergent conditions. With his content, he loves to provide insight through deeper self-understanding.
Resources Mentioned:
Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma
The Highly Sensitive Person, Dr Elaine Aron
Stay in Touch with Robert's Podcast:
YouTube | Spotify
About the Host: Jules De Vitto is a transpersonal coach, trainer and experienced educator for Highly Sensitive People. She helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to navigate emotional overwhelm, step into their authentic power and align with their true purpose in life. She is a published author and wrote one of a series of books on Resilience, Navigating Loss in a time of Crisis. Her research has also been published in the Transpersonal Coaching Psychology Journal and Journal of Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology.
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Welcome, I'm your host Jules DeVito, and you're listening to the Highly Sensitive Human Podcast. The show that offers an insight into the world of the highly sensitive person and helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to feel more empowered and resilient without denying their authentic gifts.
SPEAKER_04So welcome to today's podcast. And today I'm in conversation with Robert, who is a highly sensitive person and entrepreneur from Germany. He is the host of the Understandable Podcast. And on his channel, he talks about mental health topics such as high sensitivity and neurodiversity.
SPEAKER_05And with his content, he loves to provide insight through deeper self-understanding.
SPEAKER_04And today the two of us have really come together to talk about this topic of autism and autism spectrum disorder and its relationship to high sensitivity. And you know, what's really powerful about today's conversation is neither of us are claiming to be experts in autism. I am really an expert in high sensitivity. And although I have worked with autistic children and children on the spectrum previously, this is still a conversation that needs a lot of understanding and exploration and research. And so Robert and I are both really coming into this conversation through our personal lived experience, of course, bringing in some of the research as well. But we really want to open up the conversation and the dialogue around this topic. And we really invite anyone who is an expert in autism spectrum disorder or who can speak to the lived experience of being on the spectrum in relationship to being a highly sensitive person. We invite you to join in the dialogue. And so we really want to create this open conversation. And so I really invite you now to enjoy this podcast episode and of course get in touch if any of it resonates with you or if you have any questions on the topic. So welcome, Robert, and thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It's really a pleasure to talk to you about this topic. I'm really excited about exploring this with you as well.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Jules. And thank you so much for giving me the opportunity as well to talk about such important topics today with you. And um, yeah, let's start.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so obviously my podcast is all about high sensitivity and what it means to be a highly sensitive person. So I thought to begin, can you perhaps share a bit about your experience of being a highly sensitive person? Is it something you relate to? And if so, what is your lived experience of that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I can definitely relate to being a highly sensitive person. I think when I was younger, it was pretty clear for people seeing me operating, and um, I was always a pretty sensitive child. In the beginning, I often felt like intense over-arousal, obviously, unconsciously as a child, but I had like symptoms like strong headaches quite often. I had like um pain in my gut, those kind of symptoms. And like a couple years forward, I always was also interested in, let's say, sensitive topics. So I also studied a sensitive topic about our body, I studied nutritional sciences, and in 2018 I already launched a podcast talking about nutritional sciences, and I quickly went into more topics related to psychology. So I talked about nutritional psychology, about uh eating disorders as well, interviewing doctors about those kind of topics uh in Germany. It's uh in German language, it's still online on the podcast, and um in yeah, after after finishing uh university in uh 2020, I just started to become self-employed because I didn't question it back then, but it was like uh today it's pretty obvious to me that I just did that because I then had control over my stimuli about the things I was exposing myself. So I can control as I'm self-employed, controlling my time, controlling who I work with, when I work with people. And in 2021, I just had a like severe mental breakdown in a relationship. I just was dealing with a panic attack, and um, yeah, my my ex-girlfriend back then, she recommended me this book, I think you all know, The Highly Sensitive Person by Dr. Glenn Aaron. And I just read through it within a couple days, a couple weeks, and I just was yeah, it was so clear to me that wow, that's that's how I am. She was kind of describing me and also describing like my traits, how I operate, and I could relate a lot to that. And um, a friend of mine who also saw me doing this process, saw me suffering, saw me like developing out of that scenario. He was telling me, Well, Robert, maybe it's a good point to also start working with a therapist. So I look for a therapist, and yeah, my therapist back then also told me, Well, yeah, you're a highly sensitive person, or at least you're pretty sensitive, and you're reacting to those situations you experience in a really sensitive way. And um, yeah, after that whole experience, after that also rock bottom hit I was experiencing, I just yeah, it just felt like it's such an important topic to share. So I continued my podcast um and then also started to share these kind of things, and this is what I do today on the podcast. It's like I I do not like do this as uh like my main business. I do also work in marketing, but this is kind of my heart project where I do talk about high sensitivity, this is why I'm here today. I talk about mental health, about other conditions, all those topics I'm quite fascinated in and where I sense that it's so important um to emphasize those kinds of things, to put these out. So this is where I'm today, and I also yeah, feel feel like um that I can identify so many people in my life who are also highly sensitive people, or at least more of a sensitive kind who are somewhere on the spectrum, let's say top 30, top 40% at least. And um, yeah, high sensitivity is all around me, I think.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for sharing some of your personal experience of being highly sensitive. And I think it's something a lot of people can relate to in terms of the mental health struggles that can come with being highly sensitive as well. And so something I'm really excited about today is the fact that we're going to be talking about some of the terminology and what distinguishes high sensitivity from other uh so-called disorders. And so I thought we could begin also by defining, you know, what is high sensitivity, what is the highly sensitive person? And also something we'll look at today is um autistic spectrum disorder. And so, yeah, to begin, would you be able to maybe define high sensitivity, the official term, which is sensory processing sensitivity?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Then going into autistic spectrum disorder.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, of course. So it's uh it's a super interesting topic to talk about, also about the overlap between HSPs or sensory processing sensitivity and the autism autistic spectrum disorder, ASD. To start with uh definitions, maybe you can add some as well to the HSP definition because I think uh maybe you can also describe it in a more precise way than I could do. To me, or at least what I figured out after also researching a lot is that a highly sensitive person is someone who has a heightened perception, which is created from their sensitive nervous system. This is what's creating what we call a sensory processing sensitivity.
SPEAKER_01What would you add to that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. And one of the main terms I like to refer to in describing what high sensitivity is is the acronym DOS. So D, O, E, and S. And this is an acronym that Dr. Elaine Aaron uh founded. And the acronym stands for D is depth of processing, the fact that we process information so deeply. O is overstimulation, so as you referred to, the fact that our nervous system tends to be overstimulated quite easily. The E stands for empathy, so the fact that we are extremely empathetic. And then the S is for sensitivity to subtleties in our environment. So the fact that we do tend to notice and be impacted by subtle um environmental conditions in the external and internal environment. So that would be the simplest definition that I like to share with people. I find it summarizes it really, really nicely.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. Yeah, it's pretty precisely to also describe those traits in detail with that definition. It's true from the current state of research where we know that both our both conditions are um based on a spectrum. So we have highly sensitive spectrum, we also have an autistic spectrum. What I know is, or at least when I refer to Elaine Aren, she says 20% of population, roughly. I think you also wrote on your blog 20 to 30 percent. So yeah, it depends. Uh, but is it's around this uh this number of people who are highly sensitive who are or who are on the sensitive or highly sensitive spectrum. When you compare that to the autistic spectrum, you just have one to two percent roughly of people who are on the clear autistic spectrum if you diagnose them with the guidelines from the DSM. So from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, when you take um the fifth version, though the actual version, then you could describe this trait within within around 1 to 2% of people. And what's interesting is that if you see autism as a condition or as a disorder, same like ADHD, a lot of women are specifically undiagnosed still. There is a big discussion going on that many many females, especially are undiagnosed. Whether, or on the other hand, Elaine Aaron says the trait, for example, in the highly sensitive trait is equally spread in man and woman. And I think, and or what at least what I observe is that many women or women are more to find themselves or diagnose themselves as a highly sensitive person, diagnose themselves.
SPEAKER_04Right, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's that's pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's very interesting. And I really like how you're referring to both sensitivity and autism as a spectrum, right? So definitely this is something I like to speak about a lot. So when it comes to sensitivity, a lot of people assume, well, you're either sensitive or you're not. And I really think it's important to identify that it's not a distinct category, and it does exist on a spectrum. So yeah, we can be highly sensitive. Uh, there are those who are mediumly sensitive and then those who are low on the sensitivity spectrum. And of course, it's because it is a spectrum and a range, we can move in between those categories too at different times in our lives. And also, autism exists on a spectrum, right? So, from my perspective, these are not distinct categories. And of course, there can be overlap. And I like to speak of sensitivity as a framework too, rather than a label. It's a framework that helps us understand our lived experience. So, with that, there's a bit more flexibility flexibility and fluidity in the term and the temperament. And so, yeah, I'm curious what your perspective on that is as well, in terms of it being a distinct category or label.
SPEAKER_02Um when you, for example, look into my community, I I just uh get I got a comment from someone, and my community, for example, is convinced that a main difference between those two is that the highly sensitive traits or people are more born with highly sensitive traits, and autistic traits are something people learned are more kind of coping strategies. People learned in the early years, and that's one of the main differences. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I find it fascinating, and this is where it really highlights a gap for me in the research or the fact that there does need to be much more research in this area, because my speciality is high sensitivity, right? So I can really speak to the research in terms of being a highly sensitive person, and the fact it is believed to be an innate temperament, so it's something we are born with. However, the environmental conditions of our childhood are also what influence how that temperament is expressed in a person, right? So, as a highly sensitive person, if we are born in a very nourishing and healthy environment, then the research has shown that we tend to flourish and go on to thrive later in life. It's something known as vantage sensitivity. The fact that we're more likely to thrive and flourish later in life than the average person. But if we are born into a challenging or difficult childhood environment, then we're more likely to experience, you know, anxiety, depression, or mental health struggles later in life. So, in terms of being a highly sensitive person, it's both innate and it depends on our environment. So it's both nature and nurture. And I would also add into that there is because a lot of the work I explore is about the spiritual aspect too, our psycho-spiritual journey in life. And I would add there's a soul dimension to that too. And then in terms of being on the autistic spectrum, my understanding has always been that it is also both nature and nurture. It's something innate, it's something we're born with, and also the environment will impact again how that individual is able to navigate those challenges. So I think, yeah, it's really important to identify it's not one or the other, but both impact how the trait is expressed.
SPEAKER_02So I think what's fascinating is I read that a lot as well, yeah, that there is this gap in research that we have not like still like we know a lot of things, but it's still kind of unclear, it's still off brewery, also when we talk about the overlap, for example, of uh, on the one hand, sensory processing sensitivity, of um autism, and as well as other conditions like anxiety disorders, CPTSD of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, like what is actually where does one trait belong to? Like, where is actually one thing coming from? And I think there is a lot of missing research when I look into literature, and I feel that people like you, for example, who talk a lot about those things openly, especially on podcasts and social media, that people like you bring the topic way further than actual science does, which is interesting because we get real-world feedback according to that gap in research.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, and again, that's something I'm very passionate about, which is understanding the lived experience of being a highly sensitive person, or as we're talking about today, autism. And so, you know, at the moment, what I've noticed is that there's a lot of arguments or you know, uh disagreements in the, let's say, the autistic community, and then those who relate to being a highly sensitive person. And what I hope for, rather than there being these arguments or disagreements about the terms and the terminology, is a communication and for us to talk and really understand from each other what is the lived experience of experiencing autism or being a highly sensitive person, right? And I think that's where we can really begin to really understand what it means rather than yeah, the scientific research, which often is uh you know more quantitative and it's not really understanding how we experience it as a human. So I think communication and talking about these topics is so important. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, it's it's hugely important. I think that's also a big motivation for us today.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. So, with all of this being said, what what is your perspective then in terms of yeah, these two categories, do they overlap? Um, yeah, how can we differentiate between the two experiences?
SPEAKER_02So, first of all, in my experience and what I research, they overlap a lot. There is also a lot of obvious overlap. We have so many things which are pretty comparable. For example, when we talk about autistic masking on the one hand, which is to me pretty similar to what I called like just uh overadaption as a highly sensitive person. So I often overadapt when I'm uh in an uncomfortable situation, I do feel overwhelmed, I do feel over-aroused, then I kind of overadapt, or I would say also mask to just put like a sh like a smiley face to the outside, and I just pretend that I'm feeling in a different way. And masking also means in a way that I try to uh that I try to also change the mood of the other person, right? For example, when when I do when I feel overwhelmed and I just sense that the other person might be, I don't know, also stressed that day. I might try to act or pretend like I'm feeling good, and also trying to then even change the stressed mood of the other person so that everyone is happy in a way.
SPEAKER_04Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And this is this is one for this is one really good example um of a trait which is pretty similar to those two. I think a lot of the discussion is also coming from uh the current, yeah, the exposure uh the exposing of those topics on social media because now people can have a look into it. And I think one of the one of the main points in discussion, or one of the things which we're told quite often is that when we have a look at the research from Ilene Aren, which was um mainly done on her grandnephews, then they found out that later on they were diagnosed with Ashbergers. So everything she shared on highly sensitive people is also, at least in her studies, true for people with Ashbergers.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02So that's that's that's one of the of the core points of this discussion I've seen uh on YouTube, for example. And now there are people, especially in the autistic community, who are arguing that most of the highly sensitive people are just autistic people.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02I do not have a clear answer for that, obviously. I think there are also some key differences. Um, well, for example, when you when you have a look at the social communication skills and difficulties, I also sometimes like I'm as a high-sensive person, I also do sometimes struggle with social interactions, but I'm overly not super anxious and it does not like uh sucks out energy out of me. I don't know, like whatever. So it's not it's not that I'm suffering from social interaction or that it does overwhelm me. I still feel that I am a lot of control when I'm interacting with people. I also have the need to connect a lot with people. I'm also more like an extrovert kind of person. So I don't know, in the end, I think it's still an open question, and as we said, there is a lot of more research that has to be done around that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really important to highlight that it is possible to be a highly sensitive person and be autistic at the same time. And you know, one of the really common overlapping traits is the sensory processing difficulties, right? So, in terms of being very sensitive to um light, sound, um, textures, tactile sensations. So that's a really common overlapping trait. And in terms of the research by Dr. Elaine Aaron, I've actually heard, and we won't know unless we ever speak to Dr. Elaine Aaron herself, but this story about her nephews um being diagnosed with autism and her doing a lot of research on them, I've heard that is a myth. And I do know for a fact that Dr. Elaine Aaron's research initially was carried out carried out on hundreds of um college aged students, and her her research is validated, it is empirically validated, and she hasn't only done a case study on her nephews. So So just to point out, there is a lot of scientific research out there on the temperament of high sensitivity that has been scientifically validated. And so also a lot of scans done on the brain to show that different areas of the brain are activated in the brain of the highly sensitive person and an autistic brain. So they've shown differences in the actual workings and neural connections in the brains of those who are autistic or highly sensitive. And then at the same time, like I'm saying, there can be an overlap. And that's the same with if you are a highly sensitive person and you might also be diagnosed with ADHD, or you may also have a complex post-traumatic stress disorder. And so maybe that's something else we can talk about now as well. Yeah, what are the overlaps between things like ADHD and PTSD as well? Because I know that question comes up a lot in my community as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's so much to talk about, literally. I think the main discussion definitely is about those overlaps between high sensitivity, between autism, and between ADHD. And there will be some people probably out there who will argue that, well, that's just one thing. Like all of these conditions are just one thing that we don't know. As I said, um, for example, masking is one of those things where there's an overlap. Um, there is an overlap as well, uh huge overlap in uh emotional dysregulation. So I think emotional dysregulation uh it's a term um coming from the complex post-traumatic stress disorder. We will find that as well in that uh in that condition. And there is this beautiful paper, I really love it. Uh it's called Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma. I just printed it out one day and I read it because it's it's really interesting. And um in this paper, the authors define emotional dysregulation as uh irritability and chronic hyper-arousal. And that to me sounds a lot like what I experience as a highly sensitive person, and which is also pretty typical for people with ADHD and autism. What actually happens in a dysregulated state is because some people would argue, well, every one of us is dysregulated and upset and angry and sad at some point, but what happens in that dysregulated state, and maybe you can uh relate to that if you're a high-sensive person, you kind of your whole body gets filled with the emotion and completely fills you up. Like every tiny part of your body is the emotion, you're completely drawn in it, and you do not have a lot of control over the state, and you also have a lot of difficulties to get out of that state. Because if you would be a person who is not struggling with that that much, then you would re-regulate after, I don't know, a couple of minutes, a couple hours. But what's really fascinating about that state in those conditions is that the state kind of controls you and also sticks with you. It's a pretty sticky state for a couple hours. Even for a couple of days, you might think about that situation and that state, and it kind of um kind of stays within you. I think what what I research as well when you look at um literature such as uh CPTSD literature, the state is kind of within your nervous system. So it's kind of a neurological state, right? So your I think your your limbic system in that scenario really remembers what once happened to you. So it's I would argue for for most people who experience that, that's just my experience, uh who experience emotional dysregulated states, they probably are re-experiencing some traumatic states from the past. And those traumatic states, when they come up and they re-experience thing within a flashback, within an emotional dysregulated state, um, those states are obviously more intense in people who are more sensitive, which are people having those conditions, I guess BS Autism, ADHD, because they they all share to be highly sensitive in a way and share also a sensitive nervous system. So this is what I observed a lot.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02As an overlap in those conditions.
SPEAKER_04Right, yeah, absolutely. And I think it's so important to identify that. And again, this is where there needs to be more research, but my experience and um, you know, through the work I've done in this area, I believe there is a strong overlap between high sensitivity and PTSD. So, of course, we've got a group of highly sensitive people who were grow um brought up in healthy, nourishing environments. And as we said, they don't tend to struggle with uh anxiety, uh, depression, or nervous system dysregulation because they had that nourishing environment in their childhood. But those who had challenging childhoods are more likely to be impacted by those experiences, right? And for those experiences to result in PTSD symptoms or to be traumatic. So a good example might be let's say a child who is not sensitive, not highly sensitive, their parents divorced when they were nine. Obviously, they found that difficult, they found it challenging, but they had the resources and the ability to move through that in a healthy way. A highly sensitive child whose parents go through a divorce are going to be more impacted by that on an emotional and psychological level. And so the consequences of that are going to stay with them for a longer period of time and into their adult life as well, potentially resulting in it could be in an extreme circumstance PTSD or C PTSD, right? So yeah, there's a correlation there. Um, we can't separate the two. So just to add, anyone who is highly sensitive and struggling as an adult, I believe, also needs to address trauma and work with trauma as well.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. Yeah, I see that overlap pretty strongly.
SPEAKER_02I also see the correlation, which is in the end pretty uh logical, also, it's pretty explainable that there is this correlation as you are experiencing things probably more dramatically as a sensitive child as well, because you also what's pretty typical for sensitive children is that they sense their emotions pretty strongly, and if you're sensing panic, if you're sensing um yeah, anxiety, then you definitely will be more likely to experience that as dramatically. Because what's pretty clear is that the perception of a situation of someone is always their reality. So one child, as you explain, could experience or perceive a certain situation as traumatic but as not traumatic, and the other child could experience and perceive the same situation as a situation which is uh life-threatening to them.
SPEAKER_04Yes, absolutely. And if we look at the definition of trauma, it is not what happened to you, but your response to it, right? And that's what you're speaking to, actually how we respond, how we react to it, how our nervous system reacts to that situation.
SPEAKER_02Another thing within the overlap is what I found is pretty interesting. I got this from the book as well, um, highly sensitive people within relationships. It's uh from uh Brigitte Küster. I think it's just available in German, but what she talks about, what I did not read anywhere else before, is that highly sensitive people in general have a higher basic tension. This higher basic tension, you probably have a lot of experience in that, what people told you in your coaching, but to me it also sounds a lot like hypervigilance, right? When you compare that again with other conditions, especially with uh post-traumatic stress disorder. And hypervigilance is some kind of state of um of intense alert, that there's also always some kind of unconscious feeling of being alert within your environment when you are with your partner, when you are with other people, especially when you are uh in a busy environment in the city when there is uh a lot going on, when there's a lot of pressure at work, wherever you are, you can experience that. I think many highly sensitive people can relate to that, this basic inner heightened tension. Did you observe that as well?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, and the research has shown that highly sensitive people are the ones in the group who are being hyper-vigilant. So they've found that to be the case, that we are the ones looking out for both opportunities and threats in the environment. And they believe this has advantages in terms of you know evolution, and this is something that developed to help the survival of the group, to help the survival of the tribe. So there's a small percentage of us, 20 to 30 percent, who are the ones looking out for those threats. So, of course, yeah, that correlates with uh being hyper-vigilant and constantly scanning the environment, and that is exhausting. That is what results in um yeah, chronic stress, tension in the body, all of the symptoms that highly sensitive people struggle with, the overwhelm. Um, yeah, and of course, with the mind-body connection, if we are processing our environment so intensely, that's going to manifest as physical symptoms in the body. So chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, migraines, those are common complaints of highly sensitive people. It's something I see a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What do you think about the hyperfocus? Because hyperfocus is something which is described for people on the autistic spectrum and for people with AD. I myself also I do find myself sometimes in a really focused flow state. But what's typical for a hyperfocus state is that people do not can control it. So it just happens to them. And I usually do not experience that. I can put myself manually in a flow state. Also, for I can stay focused for two hours, for example, then work on a video, on a podcast, on a script or something. And I do not find myself being controlled by these states.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, and that's what I was going to speak to as well. I know as a highly sensitive person, it's common to have hyper focus, it does show up. And again, because there's a lot of sensitive people who also struggle with ADD or ADHD. So yeah, sometimes it's hard to know where that trait is coming from. However, as you just pointed out, we have an ability to choose and navigate and uh negotiate that state. So I know for myself, yes, I do get hyper-focused, I do have specific interests, things that I really enjoy doing, but they're not at a point of being an obsession or something I can't control or can't move out of. So I think that's a big difference for me in terms of the research of uh distinguishing between autism and being a HSP. Yeah, we can navigate those states and move between. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's interesting because I experienced the same, and I also see that in other highly sensitive people who are not on the autistic spectrum, for example, that they can navigate that state.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02One last thing where I think is also a difference is when we talk, for example, about the inattentive type, ADHD. And inattention is also something I think autistic or highly sensitive people as well can experience, but I think to them it happens from a yeah, for a different reason, I would say. Because I feel it more as in a highly sensitive person, I see inattention more of uh say a coping mechanism to withdraw and then or in an artist just a shutdown, a mental shutdown, and then being in our heads. While for someone with ADHD, as far as I understood it, it's more a neurological cause.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02That happens to them. Like it's uh it's a it's it's a trait, it's not a mechanism or a coping mechanism.
SPEAKER_04Right, yeah, and I'm not 100% sure in terms of the research on that, but I think what you're pointing out is really important in terms of we don't always know what the cause is, right? And um, with that, I think what's the most important is we're working with the symptom and how the symptom is presented in a person. And if we can understand the symptom, then we can uh we don't always need to know the cause, we can still work with helping that person. And this really leads into you know, how important is it that we have these labels and how much do we want to uh attach to these labels? Um, yeah, I'm curious what your perspective is on this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so labeling as human beings is always a really interesting topic to talk about. What I found to be is that there are two main groups of people. One group has the opinion that getting labeled or getting a diagnosis for a certain condition is something amazing because it gives them really a size of relief and they just feel, oh yeah, that's like a categorization or a category I can fit in. And the other group of people kind of resist the labels and they do not want to call the pathological, they do not want to have a mental disorder. And I think this kind of group also developed out of uh the autistic community even like already in the 90s, in the early 90s, like then they just uh stood up for the right to not being called pathological because of a neurological condition. And um what's pretty interesting for labels is that many, many of us internalize these labels. And when you internalize a label, it becomes part of your identity.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02And this is pretty difficult then to, as you said, if you want to work on a symptom, if you want to get help, then it's pretty difficult if you identify as something or as someone with a certain label or condition, because it's if it's part of your identity and you work with a therapist, then you not just work with the symptoms, but you work with the change within your identity, and that's a whole nother level of work with, is that maybe you experienced that as well as a coach.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I really hear what you're saying, and I'm in the category of actually, and this is quite interesting, I'm in the category of not wanting to label or pathologize people. I don't necessarily believe in that. And that's why when I talk about high sensitivity, even though we are using it as a label, right? I prefer to view it as a framework, as I said earlier. It's a way of helping us understand how we experience the world, but by no means do I think it's something really distinct and something which separates us or makes us any better or worse than anyone else. I think we're all human and we all have a very individual lived human experience, and that's the most important thing. And so I know this comes up a lot, and I I want to ask you this as well. You know, when we talk about high sensitivity and we talk about autistic spectrum disorder or attention deficit disorder, why are we categorizing those as disorders and high sensitivity not as a disorder? And when we do that, are we claiming that being highly sensitive is something better than uh ASD or ADHD? Um I have an answer, but I'm curious what you think about that.
SPEAKER_02Well, in uh in in my opinion, yeah, it's it's so difficult to, or I think it's uh it's not the right way, in my opinion, to put people with autism or ADHD or whatever as being mentally ill because this is what the DSM, for example, does. They say you have a mental illness, you have a mental disorder, and they also put that on a website, which is similar to a heart disease or diabetes. Heart disease, by the while, the most common cause for death in the USA. So that's compared to that. Um, what's also difficult, what I think, is that you have kind of checklists with boxes, right? You say, Well, when I want to diagnose for ADHD, you take those nine boxes, for example, for the inner tenth type. So you have nine boxes you can take. And as an adult, if you want to get a diagnosis, you have to take five. Then you have to do, of course, some other tests and psychiatry and stuff, but in the end, you just have a checklist, diagnosis, and then they say, Well, you take five out of nine, then you have ADHD. Well, there are so many people on the spectrum who just take four, and the one person who has like some traits who has a clinical diagnosis we call mentally ill, like uh having heart disease, and the other person who just take four is completely fine and normal. And I think that's pretty comparable to uh sensory processing sensitivity and autism, because you have also some traits which overlap, but the one person we call mentally ill and the other person is totally fine. So to sum that up, no, it does not make any sense to me in the end. I see that it's necessary to kind of um create categories because then we can find better treatment for people, looking into that from that angle, but I do not agree that we would yeah that we would um diagnose someone as having a pathological mental disorder. Because what I believe in the end is that we as human beings are hyper-comple individuals living in a hyper complex world, and to yeah, to create a frame for a certain condition is to to really find um find find a clear category or something that is so hypercomplex is in my opinion not possible and probably not the ideal approach.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, yeah. It's very reductionistic, and um I agree that the way we attempt to categorize and diagnose people is really reducing, again, the human experience down to uh something very simplistic when it when it's not. And um, I know the term neurodiversity is used a lot more recently, and that is a term that I appreciate because, in a way, neurodiversity is saying there's a difference. There's a difference in how we process information, there's a difference in how we interact with our environment. And all of these terms would come under the umbrella of neurodiversity. So being a highly sensitive person, having ADHD, being on the autistic spectrum, it's all neurodiversity. And I really appreciate that because we're not saying one is better than the other, we're not saying one is a disorder and one isn't, but we're saying there's a difference, and that's really how I would prefer to view all of these labels as a difference and really appreciating the gifts that come with those differences, too. So I know, for example, those diagnosed with ADHD are very creative and tend to be great entrepreneurs and uh really think outside of the box. And I think those are great gifts that should be celebrated, and unfortunately, yeah, they're not always. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Is there anything you'd like to add to that or any more thoughts on this topic?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think neurodiversity is on one hand to me, it kind of feels like a really like a trend term, you know, like a fashion term kind of thing. But on the other hand, I feel like it's yeah, it's it's fitting so well. So it's more like a neurological biodiversity, what we would say as a uh yeah, as a science-related term. And it's so interesting as well how this kind of field of neurodiversity also developed out of the autistic movement. I did just uh read the the article about it on Wikipedia, and you can also have a look at the resources from the article, and it's it's fascinating how this term came up already 25 years ago. I think first in 19 yeah, I don't know, I'm not completely sure, but 1998, I think, it was first published um in an article. And um it's also it's funny to read the critics about about the term when you when you scroll through the article and uh what people brought. Up to the topic, um, I can recommend definitely reading it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, fantastic. That's a great resource to look into. And we can attach that to the show notes as well for people to check out. So thank you for offering that. So as we're coming close to the end of our interview today, I always like to ask those I interview if there's yeah, one piece of advice or if you could summarize you know what we've been talking about today, if there's anything you'd like listeners to take away as a as a takeaway, what what might that be?
SPEAKER_02I think be conscious.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Be more conscious, have a really aware look on how you operate and also on the people around you. I think that's the most beautiful thing we can bring into the world. More consciousness and more awareness to what's going on, always being curious, always being yeah, honest. I think that's that's what everyone would say. Be more authentic. But I think authenticity is really a beautiful gift, and if we can create this out of form ourselves, if you can bring what what we really truly feel inside out to the world and act more consciously, then we can also create this world that we want. Because that's that's something a lot of people in the space in the neurodivergent movement talk about. We are not living in a world where we fit in, we feel like aliens. But I think to create this world, we also have to get out there and have to shed a light on these topics, be aware of these topics and bring these out. And this is how we can create a world where we can all find place, find our place.
SPEAKER_04Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And as you're saying it, I'm reflecting on just how important it is to be authentic and show up as our authentic true selves. And, you know, I think if there's one thing I'd like to share and take away from this conversation is yeah, the labels can be helpful, like you said. And I I feel motivated to do more research and really attempt to understand all of these categories in more detail. But I think that's a lifelong, lifelong work. And at the same time, I think when we meet an individual, it's really important to meet them as they are as a human being, rather than the label, rather than how we might want to categorize them. And I think that's the most important thing to meet someone similar to what you're saying, truly as they are. Um, let go of the labels, the identity, the fixed identity, and um really treat everyone with compassion and equality and really attempt to understand the person who is in front of you as a human being rather than a diagnosis or a pathology. Um, and for there just to be more communication between all of these different communities. So I think if we can talk more and have these kind of dialogues, we can really attempt to understand each other better. So yeah, thank you so much for this conversation today. And just to finish up, just to finish up, is there anywhere I can direct listeners in terms of your podcast, your work? Uh, how can they reach out to you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So my podcast is called Understandable, and um you can find it on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you like to watch and listen. It's a video podcast, and I do at the moment I do a lot of long-form videos, also about next video about neurodivergency. So tiny pitch and teaser here.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And um, yeah, you can find it on uh your favorite platform um as well as all the research and resources I put out there, always in the descriptions.
SPEAKER_04Fantastic. Thank you so much, and thank you for all of the work you do. And I look forward to the next uh uh conversation you're doing on neurodiversity. It sounds really great.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_05Thanks for joining me today on Highly Sensitive Humans. Make sure to visit my website, highly sensitivehumans.com, where I also offer one-to-one coaching for highly sensitive people, and a members area with monthly community meetings. You can also visit the Highly Sensitive Human Academy to find out more about upcoming online trainings, including a three-month professional training on how to coach highly sensitive people, and a three-month professional training on working with highly sensitive children. And if you found value in the show today, I'd really appreciate your rating. And you can also support the show by making a donation. Your donations are what enable the production of the podcast and enable the show to keep running.