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Highly Sensitive Person: The Ten-Question Test

An honest test, not a verdict

This test is not a diagnosis: high sensitivity is not an illness anyway, but a trait, a spectrum. It is a tool for reflection, built from what I have observed over twenty-five years in my consulting room. And one precision: these questions concern men as much as women. Answer honestly, on a calm evening.

The ten questions

  1. Do noise, bright light and crowds invade you faster than they do other people?

  2. Do you absorb the emotions of everyone who crosses a room, like a sponge?

  3. Do criticism and rejection hit you far harder than they seem to hit others?

  4. Do you need solitude to recover after a party, a meeting, a day among people?

  5. Do you overthink, long after others have moved on?

  6. Are you a perfectionist, with a small voice that finds it never quite enough?

  7. Do you feel the atmosphere, the tensions in a room, before a word is spoken?

  8. Do home working, a headset, soft light change your life more than your colleagues'?

  9. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by life itself, to the point of exhaustion?

  10. And yet: are you the one others come to, for your intuition, your listening, your depth?

What the answers mean

You sit toward the less sensitive end

Little here describes the way you take in the world, which is simply information about temperament rather than a result to be pleased or disappointed by. If you came looking on someone else’s behalf, the essay on the highly sensitive person is the better place to start.

You sit somewhere in the middle

Sensitivity is a spectrum rather than a category, and the middle of it is where most people live. What tends to matter more than the position is the setting: the same person is overwhelmed in an open-plan office and entirely fine working from home. The essay on the highly sensitive person goes into how to arrange a life around it.

You sit toward the highly sensitive end

This is the pattern the psychologist Elaine Aron described, and it is a trait rather than a disorder, roughly one person in five. Hold on to the last question, which is not scored here on purpose: the depth of reception comes first, the difficulty second. To learn to inhabit it, read the essay on the highly sensitive person; when the empathy itself becomes the burden, hyper-empathy and the mental load. And if the overwhelm is real, a first conversation is confidential and without commitment.

What your answers mean

There is no magic score. But if most of these questions sound like you, you are probably what the psychologist Elaine Aron called a highly sensitive person. Hold on first to the tenth question: high sensitivity is a depth of reception before it is a difficulty. The work is not to feel less: it is to be less invaded.

What comes next

To understand it and learn to inhabit it: the essay on the highly sensitive person. When the empathy becomes the burden: hyper-empathy and the mental load. And if you want to talk: a first conversation is confidential and without commitment.

Other tests: codependency, am I with a narcissist, borderline.

Common questions

Is this highly sensitive person test a diagnosis?

No, and high sensitivity is not an illness anyway: it is a trait, a spectrum, first described by the psychologist Elaine Aron. These ten questions are a tool for reflection drawn from twenty-five years of clinical practice, to help you locate yourself honestly.

What should I do if I recognise myself in this test?

First, hold on to the tenth question: high sensitivity is a depth of reception before it is a difficulty. Then read the full essay on the highly sensitive person, which explains how to inhabit it: the work is not to feel less, but to be less invaded. And if the overwhelm is real, it can be talked about: a first conversation is confidential and without commitment.