Children with outstanding talents sometimes get rewards and acclaim, but many are overlooked, discounted or unsupported. Adults with exceptional talents can also live on the fringes of recognition and contribution to society, some by choice, but often on account of mainstream discomfort with outsiders.
Even those who are called eccentric may want to live and express [...]

Melora Hardin plays “Jan” on the tv series “The Office” and has roles in a number of film and tv projects.
She sang as Fantine in “Les Miserables” at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this month; made her feature film directorial debut in 2007 with the movie “You,” and has produced two albums of her writing and [...]

A new Los Angeles Times profile describes some of Barack Obama’s journey, including these excerpts:
As a scholarship student at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1979, Obama faced assertions of identity everywhere: the Democrat/Socialist Alliance, Black Student Assn., Jewish Student Action Coalition, feminist support group, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.
It was here that he asked [...]

“Being happy is something you have to learn.” Harrison Ford
Ford certainly has known plenty of unhappiness. He was shy as a child, bullied at school for not “fitting in.”
According to Laura Silva Quesada, in her article A reminder from Indiana Jones, “Every day, they’d tease the future Indiana Jones, beat him, and roll him [...]

John Beebe, MD is a Jungian analyst, and co-author, with Virginia Apperson, of the new book, The Presence of the Feminine in Film. In a Shrink Rap Radio podcast interview, he talks about how movies bring to life female characters and the feminine aspect of our psyches, whether we are male or female.
“Somehow in The [...]

Author and success consultant Jenna Forrest writes in her memoir Help Is On Its Way about growing up with the trait of high sensitivity. In our recent podcast interview, she talks about empowering and transcending sensitivity. From the interview:
Millions of highly sensitive people right at this moment are carrying a heavier burden than the rest [...]

George Vaillant, MD, author of a number of books including Spiritual Evolution, notes in his Positive Psychology News Daily article, “If we are to find meaning in life, we must pay as much mind to our limbic ‘hearts’ as to our neocortical cognitions.
“Our positive emotions evoke thought-action tendencies in humans that broaden human attachment to [...]

Acclaimed for his dynamic performance as Batman - such as in the new film “The Dark Knight” - Christian Bale won’t be charged after his arrest for alleged assault on his mother and sister, in part because they didn’t want to press the matter. Bale has denied the accusation.
But according to news reports, a former [...]

“Certain basic doubts keep Colin from enjoying a truly comfortable sense of superiority.”
In a series of podcasts adapted from his book Toxic Criticism, Eric Maisel, PhD talks about how “criticism and self-criticism interfere with our ability to find our life purpose and live as strongly, passionately, and effectively as we would like to live.”
He notes [...]

“I realized that acting smart or talented in school made me sound like a geek or nerd. So I remodeled myself as an airhead.” Yoky Matsuoka
Excerpts from a NOVA scienceNOW/PBS profile :
Robotics pioneer, prosthetics visionary, and 2007 recipient of a MacArthur grant, Japanese-born Yoky Matsuoka used to describe herself as an “airhead.”
Now she is a [...]