All of them are very susceptible to other people’s emotions and actions. They prefer silence and seek to help other people. They are annoyed by crowded places and strong smells. However, psychiatrist Judith Orloff insists that empaths have their own distinctive characteristics. Let’s try to figure it out.
As a psychiatrist and empath, I am often asked the question: “What is the difference between empaths and hypersensitive people?” These emotional types are often confused because they do have a lot in common.
Both have a reduced sensitivity threshold, so any stimulus is felt more strongly. Because of this, they perceive too sharply bright light, loud sounds, pungent odors. Both of them feel the need to be alone for some time and can hardly endure large crowds of people.
But hypersensitive people need more time to recover from a stressful day and adapt to a calm environment. Almost all of them are introverts, while among empaths there are also extroverts.
Empaths share a highly sensitive nature’s love of nature and quiet surroundings, as well as their desire to help others. Both have a rich inner life.
However, empaths live everything that happens to them, one might say, at a higher level. They are exposed to subtle energies — in Eastern traditions they are called shakti or prana — and literally absorb them from other people, take them from the environment. Hypersensitive people, as a rule, are not capable of this.
Many empaths have a deep spiritual connection with nature and wildlife.
Empaths are like a highly sensitive, finely tuned instrument when it comes to emotions. They are like a sponge soaking up someone else’s anxiety, pain and anxiety. Often this leads to the fact that it is not easy for them to recognize what caused the discomfort — other people’s experiences or their own.
However, they perceive the positive emotions of those around them no less. In addition, many empaths have a deep spiritual connection with nature, the animal world, which, as a rule, cannot be said about people with hypersensitivity.
However, these emotional types do not exclude each other, and they have more in common than differences. It is possible for the same person to be both an empath and a hypersensitive person at the same time. But if you rank all people in order of increasing ability to empathize, you get the following picture:
In this range, empaths are the exact opposite of narcissists and sociopaths, who are known to be devoid of compassion. In the middle of this scale are placed those same hypersensitive natures and people with a sufficient and stable ability to show sympathy.
Am I an empath?
Reading the description, thought that all this is very reminiscent of you? To test if you really are an empath, ask yourself these questions:
Do people think I’m «too emotional» or overly sensitive?
If a friend is confused and frustrated, do I start feeling the same?
Am I easily hurt?
Am I so tired of being in a crowd that it takes time to recover?
Am I disturbed by noise, smells or loud conversations?
I prefer to come to parties in my car so I can leave whenever I want?
Am I overeating to deal with emotional stress?
Am I afraid that I will be completely consumed by intimate relationships?
If you answered yes to more than 3 questions, you have found your emotional type.