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Psychological Splitting in Highly Sensitive People: What It Is and How to Cope


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What is Splitting?


Splitting, or "dichotomous thinking, black-and-white thinking, all-or-nothing thinking"¹ is defined as "a cognitive distortion where a person views situations and people in extremes—seeing them as either all good or all bad, with no middle ground."² Our brain does this to make things feel easier, as in we don't have to deal with the difficulty of holding good and bad in our minds.


While splitting can happen to anyone during emotional stress, it’s especially common in certain mental health conditions such as Borderline Personality Disorder or Complex PTSD. HSPs might even believe they have these conditions because of their naturally intense emotions.


Splitting can destroy relationships by causing people to be seen in "the best possible light" and then "the worst possible light."³ This usually happens after a small cue causes us to feel slighted or unsafe.


Furthermore, it can lead to struggles with self-identity, like not knowing if you are "good" or "bad", more intense emotions (and more burnout because of them), impulsive actions due to the quick turn of idealization or devaluation, and more.


Splitting might look like cutting relationships off quickly, difficulty trusting others, fearing abandonment, and more.


Why are HSPs susceptible?


Well, in the same way that HSPs have more intense "reactions to stimuli", we also have more intense trauma reactions, such as splitting or dissociation. We also have a lower threshold for this stimulation and we experience more intense emotions, which meaning splitting can happen quicker or stronger for us.


Additionally, HSPs are more affected by rough childhoods, and splitting is more likely to occur under those cases, especially under "chronic emotional distress or neglect". While current research says we're not more or less likely to have rough childhoods, when we do experience adversity, it impacts us greater, and thereby we might be more inclined to use splitting as a coping mechanism.


Furthermore, we value and put effort into our close relationships, and close relationships can mean emotional intensity, especially when going through conflict, which we might take more personally than others.


We are also creative and introspective, so we may build up ideals in our heads about people or goals, which could turn into splitting if not grounded in reality.


Lastly, our heightened awareness of subtleties means we notice social cues strongly, like changes in tone or facial expression. This could make us overthink and lead to splitting, especially under stress.


How Does Being Sensitive Change the Way we Deal with Splitting?


Knowing that we're highly sensitive changes our approach to stopping our splitting.


Our splitting might differ from BPD or PTSD, in that ours might be more caused by intense emotions, and the mentioned susceptibilities above, and not as much trauma or identity issues, unless we've also had them.


What Can We Do?


To help our splitting as an HSP, we need to place more emphasis on calming our nervous system, exploring alternative interpretations to social cues, and building our self-esteem.


Let's explore those points in more detail.


Calming Nervous System

Calming or regulation of the nervous system would be one of the best ways to reduce splitting as it happens, because it allows us to hold more emotion and information without getting overstimulated. We could practice calming our nervous system through things like mindfulness, physical regulation skills, or leaving the emotional situation if possible.


Depending on your relationship with yourself and what causes your splitting, calming yourself down might be enough to stop the splitting, and you may be able to reintegrate good and bad shortly after.


It's also can soothe us to know that just because our nervous system is reacting strongly, doesn't mean the relationship is doomed.


However, splitting might also be a deeper issue from trauma or fractured sense of self and take much more than just calming ourselves down to stop, and it often involves rewiring core beliefs about ourselves or the world.


Reframing Social Cues

A reason HSPs split in relationships is when a social cue, like a smirk, tone change, remark, or joke is interpreted negatively or deeper than the sender meant it. It takes a while to get to know someone and come to terms with who they are and what their unique social cues mean.


Exploring alternative possibilities about why someone might have raised their voice, for instance, helps. Maybe they are extremely blunt and don't have the social nuance you do, or maybe they let out anger that had nothing to do with you.


It also might take direct questions asking people why they react in certain ways to be able to get clarity.


Building Self Esteem and Individuality

Being ashamed of ourselves or sensitivity can lead to low self-esteem. Some of us also struggle with loneliness which could lead to fear of rejection or abandonment.


Fear of rejection or abandonment can lead to splitting, because when we are afraid of those things, our brain can split and say, "I don't care if they leave me because they're bad". This splitting protects a blow to our self esteem, but also causes deeper issues.


Building our self-esteem and finding meaning outside of relationships might help intense emotions in relationships, which could help our fear of rejection, and thereby splitting.


Conclusion


Ultimately, splitting can be a major issue impacting highly sensitive people and their relationships, but acknowledging how our sensitivity affects splitting can be a major stepping stone in fixing it.


This article was inspired by a section from The Highly Sensitive Person book by Elaine Aron.


Sources

¹ Wikipedia Contributors. “Splitting (Psychology).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 June 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology).


² UHS-CypressCreek. “Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): What Is Splitting?” Cypresscreekhospital.com, 2025, www.cypresscreekhospital.com/blog/borderline-personality-disorder-what-is-splitting/.


³ Carbone, Nancy. “How Does BPD Splitting Destroy Relationships?” Mental Health Center of America, 21 Feb. 2022, mentalhealthcenter.com/how-does-bpd-splitting-destroy-relationships/.


Lo, Imi. “Trauma Splitting, Structural Dissociation and HSPs.” Eggshell Therapy and Coaching, 2023, eggshelltherapy.com/a-split-in-our-personality/#Complex_Trauma_and_Highly_Sensitive_Persons_HSPs_Intense_and_Gifted_Adults. Accessed 6 July 2025.


Aron, E. N. (2017). Highly Sensitive Person.


Weng, Yurong. “Parenting Impacts Highly Sensitive Children and Adolescents’ Mental Well-Being: An Intergenerational Perspective.” Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 8, 7 Feb. 2023, pp. 695–702, https://doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v8i.4333. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023.


 
 
 

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