Hilary Swank and Emotional Excitability



Most people experience strong feelings occasionally, unless they are depressed. But for some, their emotional reactions are especially intense.

Psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902 – 1980) developed a theory of personality that is often used to understand gifted children and adults.

One of his ideas is Emotional Overexcitability (or Excitability), which can include intense feelings, extremes of complex emotions, empathy with other people, vivid emotional memory, and strong reactions to injustice and social issues.

Hilary Swank, it seems to me, is a wonderful example. She makes use of emotional excitability in her work, and expresses herself with deep feelings in these two interview clips (below).

In her interview for Inside the Actors Studio, she talks about a very difficult scene in Boys Don’t Cry, and her feelings about the hatred often shown toward transgender people.

In this clip from a 60 Minutes interview about her film Million Dollar Baby, she is distraught about not being able to save a man who suffered a heart attack.

Journalist Mike Wallace makes a nice comment at the end: “Her emotions are always close to the surface. It has helped make her one of Hollywood’s best actors.”

Related articles:

Overexcitabilities in Gifted Children, By Lesley Sword

Theory of Positive Disintegration as a Model of Personality Development For Exceptional Individuals, By Elizabeth Mika
“Children with high emotional OE [Overexcitability] show an early development of a strong affective life. These are the children who cry easily, are easily frightened and anxious, exhibit strong attachments to people, places and objects; as well as strong envy and anger.”

References:

Mellow Out, They Say. If I Only Could: Intensities and Sensitivities of the Young and Bright, by Michael M. Piechowski

Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and the Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults. Susan Daniels, Michael M. Piechowski (Editors)

Dabrowski’s Theory Of Positive Disintegration, by Sal Mendaglio.

Social / Emotional Aspects of Giftedness [multiple articles, links]

Related sections:
High Ability
Highly Sensitive

overexcitability , excitability , Dabrowski, gifted adult personality, psychology of giftedness, high ability, high aptitude

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11.12.09   By Douglas Eby
Acting / Performing • High Ability • High sensitivity • Videos
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  • Avi

    This is so intiguing.
    I happened to watch Million Dollar Baby on TV a week ago.
    I guess my intuition told me this means something to me.
    I paid attention to Hilary’s acting though I never knew
    her before. I also have this thing called emotional excitability though I do not have yet creative outlet for this. I now remember my acting teacher once mentioned
    I have emotional depth but I tend to hide it cause it is
    labeled as being too dramatic. Another synchronicity is Hilary getting emotional about not saving the man. I think emotional guys are easily sensing others emotional state. When my father was hospitalized due to a stroke, I noticed a man whose wife got a stroke as well. I guess
    I felt he is in distress himself. All the attention went to his wife but his silence felt not so good to me. Thoughts about getting into conversations with him came to me head, with the idea to allow him express his feelings. But I did act upon it, I did not know
    how to approach him so I thought about organizing a group of family memebers to share feelings but again
    it didn’t materialize. Then a few months later I incidently met his daughter who told me her father
    suffered a heart attack. I felt so sad and cried a lot
    for not following my intuition for maybe just maybe I could have saved the man from suffering a heart attack.


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