Too loud, too bright, too fast, too tight : what to do if you are sensory defensive in an overstimulating world

353 Pages·2003·1.42 MB·English

by  Heller

Dedication
To Robert,
easy, playful, calming
Epigraph
It is very confusing, and very frustrating, to spend so much effort being so
afraid to be touched, and working so very hard to avoid being touched,
when it is touching and being touched that I need most of all.
—PAT HOLBROOK
Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight
Illuminates an Often Misunderstood Condition
• Explains how the tendency to become easily overstimulated has a name
and a framework of understanding beyond stress and anxiety
• Explores the differences between sensory defensiveness and common
hypersensitivity
• Examines why many sufferers are misdiagnosed with such psychiatric
conditions as anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive behavior,
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, or anorexia

Offers a Comprehensive Resource for Sufferers
• Helpful for anyone who reacts with irritation and even alarm to ordinary
sensation that others can tune out, such as touch, heat, cold, motion, sounds,
lights, odors, and taste
• Appropriate for sufferers of all ages and levels of severity
• Clear and jargon free
• Brings readers up-to-date on the latest thinking and techniques to combat
this condition
• Teaches sufferers what they can do to minimize sensory overstimulation
and educate others
• Provides self-tests and quick and accessible to-do lists for decreasing
overwhelming stimuli
• Suggests sensorimotor activities for daily routines to increase calmness
and alertness
• Shows how to cope with rapidly changing and irritating environments
• Provides a holistic treatment approach that includes strategies from
occupational therapy and many other disciplines
Proposes a New Perspective for Understanding Behavior
• Explains the crucial role of sensory processing in understanding our
behavior
• Provides numerous case studies to demonstrate how sensory
defensiveness mimics, exaggerates, or results in many psychiatric
conditions

Uses Clear and Jargon-Free Language
• Written in a lively, engaging style with numerous case histories
• Gets to the heart of the matter with concisely organized chapters readers
can turn to as needed
• Offers workable, real-world advice from leading clinicians and
researchers and Dr. Heller’s clinical experience
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction: Too Sensitive for Your Own Good
Part 1: Living Outside the Comfort Zone
Chapter 1 - Senses on the Defense
Chapter 2 - Sensory Processing: The Touchy Nervous System
Chapter 3 - Levels of Defensiveness: From Mild to Maddening
Part 2: Secondary Effects: From Dis-Ease to Disease
Chapter 4 - Weaving a Web of Fear: Sensory Defensiveness Across the
Lifespan
Chapter 5 - From Anxiety to Addictions
Chapter 6 - The Body Erupts: The Psychosomatic Side of Sensory
Defensiveness
Part 3: Your Sensory Diet
Chapter 7 - Getting Started
Chapter 8 - Priming the Pump
Chapter 9 - Sound Health
Chapter 10 - Seeing the Whole Picture
Chapter 11 - Air Control
Chapter 12 - A Harmonious Space
Part 4: Removing Treatment Obstacles
Chapter 13 - Food for Your Nervous System
Chapter 14 - Breathing Lessons
Chapter 15 - Posturing for Inner Peace
Chapter 16 - Mind/Body—Only Connect!
Appendix A: Sensory Defensiveness Survival Kit
Appendix B: Defensive Reactions to Sensation
Notes
Glossary
Resource Guide
Index
About the Author
Also by Sharon Heller
Copyright
About the Publisher
Acknowledgments
I am enormously grateful to Moya Kinnealey, Carol Kranowitz, and Steven Cool
for their careful and thorough reading of the manuscript and valuable
suggestions, and to Betsy Hancock, Jeannetta Burpee, Judy Kimball, Troy Mills,
and Dean Howell for reading and commenting on various sections. My heartfelt
thanks to friends Carolyne Singer, Hilary Leibowitz, and Mayo Viscioso for
their helpful input.
I want to thank Leslie Stern, my first editor at HarperCollins, for her initial
help and encouragement. Gail Winston, my managing editor, was an author’s
dream—thorough, committed, and efficient. Thanks to my agent, Mary Ann
Naples of Creative Culture, for her ongoing support and encouragement
throughout.
I greatly appreciate the many sensory-defensive people who allowed me to
share their stories. Pat Holbrook, the owner of the chatline Adultsid (adults with
sensory integration dysfunction), is an enormously insightful person whose
articulate descriptions of her own lifelong struggle with sensory defensiveness
greatly enhanced my understanding of this problem and substantially contributed
to the writing of this book. I want to thank as well the other members of this
chatline who shared their stories.
Lastly, I want to thank occupational therapist Patti Oetter. My therapist at the
Ayres Clinic and my mentor over the last seven years, Patti has taught me much
of what I know about sensory integration and the problem of sensory
defensiveness. She is unusually perceptive and has an extraordinary ability to
tune in to others and make one feel she’s right there.
Because little has been published on sensory defensiveness, and especially in
adults, much of the information in this book came from occupational therapy
workshops given by Patricia and Julia Wilbarger, Patti Oetter, Nancy Lawton-
Shirley, Sheila Frick, Mary Kawar, Marie Anzalone, and Steven Cool.
Conversations with occupational therapists Carolyn Slutsky and Deborah Milam
further advanced my knowledge.
Foreword
This book represents a breakthrough in understanding and describing sensory
defensiveness, a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of Americans, and
is just now being recognized by the medical, psychological, and educational
communities.
The inability to find sensory comfort in our sensorially imbalanced society—
typified by fast, loud, bright “bytes” and few islands of calm—makes everyone
feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and stressed. The heightened defensive reactions
of people with sensitive sensory systems can severely compromise daily activity
and quality of life.
Advice to sufferers has typically been “You’ll grow out of it,” “You’ll get
used to it,” or “It’s all in your head.” In this book, the condition is described and
named, the physiological roots are identified, and methods of effectively
changing the impact of the condition are suggested.
The depth of understanding and the clarity of description which bring the
many elusive aspects of sensory defensiveness into focus have typically been
within the professional purview of occupational therapists in their work with
children with disabilities. Sharon Heller, Ph.D., makes this information
understandable and available to us all by providing insight into the lives of adult
sufferers so that they and their loved ones who are struggling to cope, as well as
helping professionals who are trying to be effective, can better understand this
condition.
Heller, a psychologist and a skilled author with several books to her credit,
became sensory defensive as a result of a fall. Because she acquired the
condition later in life, she is able to recognize its devastating impact. In contrast,
people who have been sensory defensive all their lives cannot fathom how
significantly their experience differs from that of other people, and, as a result,
they blame themselves. As a psychologist, Heller is able to authoritatively
describe how this condition can impact emotional well-being and may imitate or
contribute to psychological conditions. Her exhaustive research and extensive