EXPLORING INNER EXPERIENCES OF MUSLIMS WITH HIGH SENSORY-PROCESSING SENSITIVITY IN FACING THE LOSS OF LOVED ONE(S) DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Individuals with high sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS) often experience overarousal from sensory input, strong emotional reactivity, great empathy, and high awareness of subtle cues in the environment, causing them to easily become overwhelmed and experience greater stress (Bas et al., 2021; Greven et al., 2019). COVID-19 pandemic has caused major changes, including the experience of loss and grief. Due to the restrictions of relatives’ visits and physical meetings, it is unknown how high SPS individuals experience the grieving process during the pandemic. Thus, the research questions of this study are: 1) How do individuals with high SPS experience the loss of loved one(s) during COVID-19 crisis; and 2) How do individuals with high SPS cope with the loss of loved one(s) during COVID-19 crisis? Using IPA approach, the study will explore the experiences of high SPS adults who experienced the loss of loved ones during COVID-19 crisis. Using purposive sampling, the study will recruit approximately five participants that are: a) Malaysian Muslim adults, b) with high SPS, c) who experienced loss of their loved one(s) during the COVID-19 crisis, to participate in a semi-structured interview. The study of SPS is new and studies on Muslims with high SPS in the Malaysian community have not been found. Given the limitation of past literatures that cover the coping experiences related to loss among high SPS individuals, this study is designed to contribute to new hypotheses for future studies of SPS.

Keywords: sensory-processing sensitivity, coping with loss, COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysian Muslim adults