Highly Sensitive People & Childhood Emotional Neglect
Understanding the Overlap
I specialize in working with Highly Sensitive People (HSPs). High sensitivity, also known as sensory processing sensitivity, is a trait associated with being more responsive to both internal and external stimuli. HSPs tend to notice more, process experiences deeply, and become overwhelmed more easily when there’s a lot going on.
High sensitivity isn't just about being emotional. It can include:
Depth of processing – thinking deeply about experiences
Overstimulation – becoming overwhelmed when there’s too much happening at once
Emotional responsiveness and empathy – having strong emotional responses and being very aware of other people's emotions
Sensory sensitivity – being particularly aware of things like light, sound, temperature, and texture
Many HSPs grow up feeling different from other people. They may need more time to make decisions, have difficulty jumping into conversations, or simply find the pace and stimulation of everyday life exhausting.
The Link Between HSPs and Childhood Emotional Neglect
Often, people don't realize they're highly sensitive until adulthood, sometimes after struggling with anxiety, depression, or feeling chronically overwhelmed.
A sensitive child may also have needs that a parent simply doesn't understand. A parent who isn't highly sensitive might not understand why their child is so upset by something that seems minor to them, needs so much downtime, or reacts strongly to conflict or criticism. The parent may be loving and well-intentioned and still repeatedly miss what that particular child needs.
When a child's emotional needs consistently go unnoticed or aren't responded to, this can contribute to Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).
Dr. Jonice Webb, who writes extensively about childhood emotional neglect, makes an important distinction: emotional neglect doesn't necessarily mean that your parents didn't love you. Sometimes it's more about what didn't happen. Your feelings weren't noticed, asked about, understood, or taken seriously enough.
As an adult, you may have a hard time knowing what you feel or need. You might assume you're overreacting, feel embarrassed by how strongly things affect you, or believe you should be able to handle more than you can.
In therapy, part of the work can be understanding how those earlier experiences shaped the way you see yourself now. This isn't necessarily about blaming your parents. It's about recognizing that some of the things you've come to see as flaws in yourself may have developed in a context where important parts of you weren't very well understood.
Exploring the Overlap
Not every highly sensitive person experienced childhood emotional neglect, and not everyone who experienced emotional neglect is highly sensitive. Two children can also grow up in the same family and experience it very differently.
But I see enough overlap between high sensitivity and childhood emotional neglect that I think it's worth considering both. If you've spent much of your life feeling like you're “too sensitive,” the question may not only be why you're sensitive. It may also be what happened when you were sensitive around the people you depended on.
