highly sensitive person

[UDP]

Actually, the author identifies sensation seeking as a subtype of the HSP and has a test for that in the book.

Similarly, as I was mentioning kids and sensory-integration issues--occupational therapists identify sensory-avoidance and sensory-seeking as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, the individual seeks to regulate the sensory state, I guess. Sometimes the same person will exhibit high sensory sensitivity--let's say to touch, to sound--and therefore avoid touch and sound in many contexts, yet will also seek touch and sound in various ways that they can control.

what is this "sensation seeking" thing? I've read abotu it on her website but I really don' understand what it is. Is there a way to find out more about it?

What you say there somewhat sounds like me. I'm very tactile, and I don't like certain things touching me, but also want to manipulate and influences certain other touches and physical things.

[golden]

what is this "sensation seeking" thing? I've read abotu it on her website but I really don' understand what it is. Is there a way to find out more about it?

What you say there somewhat sounds like me. I'm very tactile, and I don't like certain things touching me, but also want to manipulate and influences certain other touches and physical things.

The challenge with this topic is that it lies mostly in the domain of occupational therapy (OT), and OT mainly deals with the needs of children where sensory stuff is concerned. I have seen a few articles here and there on adults dealing with sensory-integration issues, but what one finds is that for the most part, adults have figured out various coping strategies. (Adults also have more control over their environments. I can choose not to go into a tiny, loud, overcrowded ice-cream shop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but my child could not choose to not attend a loosely structured kindergarten where he was repeatedly bumped by other children and the atmosphere was always verging on mild chaos.) OT attempts to help children find coping strategies faster, and perhaps more important, to bypass the need for strategies by going straight to the neurological underpinnings of sensory issues and resolving the problems there.

But seeing my son go through some of the same challenges I've faced has in itself been instructive. Probably the best book on this subject is called The Out-of-Sync Child. It discusses both sensory avoidance and sensory seeking.

Amazon.com: The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder, Revised Edition (9780399531651): Carol Kranowitz, Lucy Jane Miller: Books

Just googling "sensory processing adults" might uncover some shorter treatments of the subject. And the book under discussion in this thread, Elaine Aron's The Highly Sensitive Person, contains more information on stimulation seeking. She also has written about how to manage this approach to sensory input within relationships, as partners having different levels of sensory needs can experience misunderstanding and conflict.