Over Sensitization and Long Term Care

People who are overly sensitive are in a perpetual, sub-conscious state of anxiety in which they perceive the world around them to be dangerous, arbitrary, hostile, etc.  Eternal vigilance is their catchword.  They can detect danger where others can’t.  Their glass is always half empty.  This can be the kiss of death when it comes to financial planning as these types of people distrust everyone and end up making poor financial decisions on their own.  It does not happen too often, but our agents do run across these people from time to time in the long term care insurance field.  We are careful to provide copies of our insurance license, BBB accreditation and often testimonials from happy clients. 
 

The old Al Capp character in the Li’l Abner comic strip, Joe Bfpstk, had a perpetual rain cloud over his head—so he was always being rained on and perceived that everyone else was seeing the world through a rainstorm.  Joe saw problems that others didn’t, with everyone else frolicking in the sunshine.  Joe was an over sensitized caricature of such personality types. 

It’s not as clear what defense purposes one’s sensitization serves the individual as it is with some other defense mechanisms, but it is thought that it protects the self-structure of the personality, with eternal vigilance a small price to pay.

Thus, overly sensitive people might tend to see and ascribe motives in others that are really not there.  Depending on other personality characteristics they might perceive these motives as positive or negative, but the danger to them is that they are not strongly reality motivated.

One common thread that I noticed in my WWII, Korean and Viet Nam veteran clients, who had experienced traumatic events in combat, was that they simply did not want to talk about their experiences because they feared what the rest of us would think about them.  So they clammed up, burying these thoughts and feelings, which often caused them significant emotional problems.  Only in recent years, with media presentations such as “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Greatest Generation,” which have pretty much been accepted by our society as picturing these veterans as heroes and saviors of our nation, have these men been de-sensitized sufficiently enough to look at these experiences more realistically.  And the public has shown concern and empathy in what they went through, further de-sensitizing them to the point that they are now often more open to talking about those experiences. You’ve probably noticed this behavior in the older vets you know.

In the long term care insurance business, over sensitization often leads to distrust of insurance sales persons when the eternal vigilance factor causes the potential buyer to be overly cautious, sometimes getting to the point that the  person cannot make a decision.  Reasonable caution is a good thing but does not need to be overdone.  We suggest you use reasonable caution by making sure your agent is licensed, follows through with action in a timely fashion, and gives you an up-front presentation that leaves you to decide what you should do.