Are You an Orchid, Tulip or Dandelion? Why Your Temperament Matters

Image by Zoltan Tasi

There is a Swedish term, maskrosbarn, which means ‘dandelion child’. The Swedes have long believed that a proportion of kids were like dandelions – they were hardy, resilient and could grow anywhere. Just as dandelions can grow in lawns, parks or cracks in the pavement, so these unusually robust children can manage in any family, even if from the outside they look like tough environments in which to grow up.

Psychologists Bruce J Ellis and W Thomas Boyce, when studying genetics and child development, coined a new term in 2005: orkidebarn, meaning ‘orchid child’. Unlike their hardier counterparts, orchid children are – like the flower – highly sensitive, needing just the right environment to flourish. If the parenting/family dynamic is not what they need, orchids struggle mentally and physically, and can go on to suffer from long-term mental-health problems.

In new research, Dr Francesca Lionetti and colleagues identify a third category: tulips. These are medium-sensitivity children, somewhere between dandelions and orchids. The authors write that in their study of 901 healthy adults, 31 per cent were orchids, 29 per cent dandelions and 40 per cent tulips. These numbers vary from study to study, but what is clear is that some children are born with highly sensitive temperaments (also known as Highly Sensitive Persons), with less-sensitive children at the other end of the scale, and medium-sensitive in the middle. This temperamental sensitivity, or lack of it, stays with people into adulthood.

How temperament shapes your personality

Why does this matter? As I am always telling my clients, your temperament is crucial because it shapes you from the moment of your birth (and probably before that, in the womb). It is a combination of nature and nurture – the genetic inheritance you received from your parents combined with early parenting, attachment with your primary caregivers, family dynamics, and so on. If you were born a dandelion, you would have been pretty thick-skinned as a child, managing to cope even in high-conflict, volatile or otherwise less-than-ideal family environments.

But if you were an orchid, the same families would have been far too much for you, causing you persistent stress which would, in turn, have affected your developing brain. We know, for example, that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol negatively impact brain development, starting in the womb. This can harm a tiny baby’s growing brain, affecting its shape, size and connectivity.

Put simply: if you were an orchid in a stressful, chaotic or otherwise dysfunctional family, you would have suffered. And, very sadly, that suffering might have continued throughout your life – Dr Boyce writes that orchids account for a disproportionately high percentage of every society’s physical and mental-health problems. That’s because your highly sensitive temperament made you unusually vulnerable to things going wrong at every level of your mind-body system.

Why orchids can thrive

If you – like me and most of my clients – are an orchid, this may all seem a bit depressing. You were born with a highly sensitive temperament, your family wasn’t great, so then you suffer for life, right? Wrong. In fact, research also shows that, given the right care, orchid children thrive. They do better educationally, financially and in every other way than dandelions. Just like their horticultural namesakes, these kids can bloom into the most beautiful adults, they just need a little care, the right emotional nutrients, and some time.

There are two take-home points here. First, your temperament is key, whether you are an orchid, tulip or dandelion. It plays a huge part in making you, you. It is mostly inherited, but is profoundly affected by your environment.

Second, none of this is inherently good or bad. Sensitivity is an inherited neural – and neutral – trait. Just like being short or tall, having green eyes or brown, it’s something you are born with. But unlike your eye colour, it can change because of your environment and throughout your lifetime. And the problems that high sensitivity makes you vulnerable to can be mitigated by all the usual methods of healing and change – reading mental-health blogs like this one, self-help books, podcasts, therapy, meditation, yoga, loving relationships and all the other good stuff I am always writing about.

I hope you find these ideas eye-opening. If you would like to know more, try Dr Boyce’s book: The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Sensitive People Struggle and How All Can Thrive. It’s a great read and has helped shaped my thinking around temperament and child development.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

Why Your Temperament Shapes Who You Are

Image by Treddy Chen

Temperament may be the most important idea you have never heard about. I say that because so many of my clients have never heard about it, or have a minimal understanding at best. And it’s so important, because the kind of temperament you have really does shape who you are. So, what is it? How does it develop? And can it be changed?

The first thing to understand about temperament is that we all have one – it’s essentially your character, who you are as a person. You are born with a certain kind of temperament – it’s probably mostly genetic – and it stays fairly constant throughout your life.

It’s possible too that early life experiences help shape your temperament, because we know how powerful and formative they are for us as people, but we’re really not sure. What we do know is how to measure it.

If you had your temperament measured by a psychologist, he or she would use around 20 measures, such as passive/aggressive, sensitive/robust, emotional/rational and introvert/extrovert (they would use more complicated jargon for these terms, but this is what they would mean). And where you scored on these 20 items would determine your temperament.

The Highly Sensitive Person

Most of my clients (and most therapists I know) are what psychologist Elaine Aron calls Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs). Around 20% of the population are HSPs, which means they are temperamentally more sensitive than most people. This is crucial, because it determines how much you are affected by everything that happens to you throughout your life, but especially in childhood.

So if (like me) you are an HSP, even fairly mild negative experiences in childhood will really affect you. That’s not your fault, it’s just how you’re wired, in your brain and the rest of your nervous system. You might be more sensitive to sensory inputs like bright lights, loud noises, strong smells or crowds of people. You may find it harder to ‘shrug off’ hurtful, critical comments. You will certainly find it very difficult to ‘stop being so sensitive’ or ‘toughen up’, however often people tell you to do those things.

Can temperament change?

Of course, it’s not just sensitive people who experience traumatic things in their lives. And you don’t need to be highly sensitive to be hurt by things like family dysfunction, being yelled at as a kid, or bullied in school (as I wrote about in a recent post). These experiences are painful for everyone, to a greater or lesser degree.

So can your temperament change? If you are very sensitive, can you become less so? Or the other way round? Well, yes and no. I think your basic temperament does stay fairly consistent throughout your lifetime. A sensitive guy like me is not going to become highly insensitive overnight. But we know that so much about you can change, with the acquisition of knowledge, from blogs like this one, self-help books, therapy sessions, podcasts, and so on.

And, if you have a trauma history, we know that the wounds this causes can be healed, with the right help and support. So I think the answer is, yes, your temperament can change, in some ways – even if your fundamental personality probably won’t.

If you would like to know more about temperament and how it shapes us, especially in the context of trauma, do come along to my webinar on Saturday 26th February: What is Trauma and Can it Be Healed? Just click the button below if you would like to attend – I hope to see you there.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?

Elaine Aron is an American clinical psychologist who has spent her career researching, writing about and providing therapy to Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs). Aron discovered this group and set about testing her theory that some people are more sensitive than most – she believes HSPs make up about 20 per cent of the population. Her book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, is written for HSPs like herself, as she is an unusually sensitive individual too. 

I must admit that this book has had a huge impact on me. Not only does it describe at least 90 per cent of the people I work with, but it also describes me with eye-opening accuracy. HSPs, according to Aron, have an unusually sensitive nervous system.

This means that they pick up on far more of the information in their environments than less-sensitive people. They are affected by bright lights, loud noises, crowds and strong smells. If there is tension in a room, they will pick it up and find it uncomfortable. They will intuit which people in a group are friends and who dislikes each other. They are like tuning forks for subtle interpersonal vibes.

Aron is quick to point out that being an HSP does not make us superior to our less-sensitive friends, family members or colleagues. This sensitivity is a trait – largely genetic but also affected by our life experiences – that is neutral. In some ways, it is a real advantage – I always tell my clients that I could not be a schema therapist without a high level of sensitivity. Being this sensitive makes me, and all other HSPs, more thoughtful, empathic, attuned to other people and their needs, as well as a whole host of other good things.

Sensitivity is no bad thing

But perhaps the most important point that Aron makes – and one I really want you to take on board – is that being sensitive is in no way a bad thing. I don't know about you, but all my life people have told me I should be less sensitive. 'It's just a joke – stop taking things so seriously!' Or, 'Why do you always make such a big deal about things? Just man up and toughen up, for God's sake.' Don't be so shy/introverted; be the life and soul, speak louder, be more of a 'character'. 

For men especially, sensitivity is often seen as a weakness, or something to be ashamed of. Many HSPs get bullied at school, for precisely this reason. And extra-sensitive women are often told they are crazy, or over-emotional, because they feel things deeply and cannot just lighten up, or get a grip, or let it go.

So if this describes you, please understand that there is nothing wrong with you – and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. You are just genetically, temperamentally, a bit different from most other people. This probably means that you have been very much affected by difficulties in your childhood, or family of origin.

You may have an anxiety disorder, or get depressed. You may even have personality problems, or struggle with addiction. All of these things need help, from a professional like me or one of my colleagues, who are trained to help sensitive people (and less-sensitive ones, of course) become happier and healthier. I would also strongly recommend reading this book.

And if it describes you, give it to your partner, friends and family, so they can better understand you and why you behave as you do.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Are You an Orchid or a Dandelion?

Image by Petra Kessler

One of the key ideas I always share with my clients is that we all have a certain temperament, which we are born with and which has a profound impact on the way that life experiences, good or bad, affect us. Many of my clients have a sensitive, emotional temperament, which means that they are much more affected by problems in the family than someone with a robust, more intellectual temperament.

It's important to emphasise that having a certain kind of temperament is neither good nor bad – it's just like being born with brown or blonde hair, blue or green eyes, not your choice or fault in any way but simply how you arrived on this planet.

I also tell my clients that I have a sensitive, emotional temperament too. This can make life difficult at times, as I am affected deeply by negative experiences and my childhood was pretty bumpy, to say the least. But it also bestows on me particular talents and gifts – I could not be a therapist without this kind of temperament. After all, you wouldn't want a therapist who was insensitive, unempathic or unkind! 

Dandelion children

Psychologists have, in recent years, been investigating the theory that we are all either orchids or dandelions. This is based on the Swedish idea that 'dandelion children' are pretty robust and do well in any environment, even if the parenting and family dynamic are less than perfect.

US psychologists Bruce Ellis and W. Thomas Boyce extended this idea to include 'orchid children', who were especially sensitive and so needed just the right conditions to thrive. In practice, that means loving, nurturing parents; a relatively calm and stable family environment; and no traumatic experiences during childhood.

If orchids have a difficult family dynamic, they will struggle – developing a number of schemas which will affect them throughout their life and very likely experience depression or anxiety, among other problems, when these schemas are triggered by stressful events. But, if these sensitive children are well-nurtured, they will bloom into beautiful young people and later adults – just like the orchids above.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why is Your Temperament Important for Your Mental Health?

Image by Benjamin Voros

We are all born with a certain temperament, which varies from child to child – even siblings in the same family may have very different characters. Exactly what gives us our temperament is still being investigated by psychologists, but it's probably a combination of our genes and brain makeup, as well as experiences during pregnancy and early infancy.

One thing is for sure: your temperament is extremely important, because it determines how much you are affected by the experiences – both good and bad – you have in the family and at school, throughout childhood and into early adulthood, when your brain, personality and ways of thinking, behaving and coping with life are all being formed. In schema therapy, we are also very interested in schemas and modes, which are also formed in part because of your temperament.

You can think about temperament in terms of spectrums, for example between being introvert and extrovert, rational and emotional, sensitive and thick-skinned, passive and aggressive... If you plotted where you fall on all of these spectrums, that would be your temperament.

Sensitivity: a double-edged sword

Most of the people I see for therapy have sensitive, emotional temperaments, which means they are much more vulnerable to negative experiences in their family such as abuse, emotional neglect, harsh criticism, angry outbursts, excessively strict parents, or those struggling with drug, alcohol, or mental health problems as they try to raise their children.

Having a sensitive temperament means you will be much more affected by even minor problems in the family – this will lead you to form painful schemas, which will be triggered in adult life when you experience similarly difficult events.

But as I often tell my clients, having a sensitive and emotional temperament is a double-edged sword. It does make life difficult, but it also gives you great gifts – of kindness, empathy, intuition, creativity, the ability to love and nurture others.

I know this to be true, because this describes me very well too! Being a sensitive and emotional sort of person has made life difficult at times but also makes me – I hope – a kind, compassionate, insightful therapist.

So if you are struggling with the impact of a painful childhood, remember that a big part of this story is your temperament – which, of course, is not your fault, because it's something you were born with. Try to be compassionate to yourself as you embark on a journey to heal your painful schemas, free yourself from the long-term effects of a tough childhood and become a happier, stronger, more self-nurturing person.

Warm wishes,

Dan