~
~
|
Gifted People and their Problems By
Francis Heylighen, PhD [page 2 - continued from page 1] On Giftedness, an interview with Mary
Rocamora And
the research community is far more interested now in studying the
nature of that inner process, and expanding the scope of it to go beyond just high intelligence,
which we know is a component of giftedness, to include other qualities
like sensitivity, perfectionism;
a quality called entelechy, which is associated with being a visionary, having a personal
vision, and being able to actualize that vision from within - rather
than needing other people externally to realize it. There's
also idealism with a lot of gifted people, where there's a sense of
disparity between what we are and what we could be, and that disparity
becomes the fuel for an inner self-becoming toward perfection.
[...] People might be scared or intimidated of
gifted people because of our societal stereotypes that the
gifted are somehow above everyone, and that's not the case. A
gifted person is not a morally superior human being, necessarily. Also
people may fear others will think they're stuck up if they think of
themselves as gifted - and there's the stereotype, right there. And
that's one of the real struggles of embracing one's own giftedness is
that we have these ideas in this culture that gifted people are
arrogant, gifted people are snooty, that they think they're better than
others. And that's typically not the case; they're more likely to feel
inadequate to others, because of their own high standards. [...] I've
never seen giftedness expire. I've seen it get worse - that the
sensitivity deepens, the perfectionism gets more intense, the
excitability factor - all this energy will erupt, just makes more of
itself. All of these things refer to people who are self-aware; for
people who don't have the awareness, they could easily just die on the
vine. And
this often happens to gifted girls: because of cultural conditioning
it's known that gifted girls lose one IQ point per year growing up in
the school system. They don't get the mirroring and they don't get the
mentoring - and they're 'just girls'. [...] [...]
The starting point, Dr. Noble declares, "is always self-awareness,
which is not narcissism.And for gifted women, that absolutely includes
the recognition of giftedness, because most women who are gifted, as
you well know, think they're freaks,
and feel horribly different -- isolated, alienated, ostracized, 'What's
wrong with me?' [...] "Change
has to come in terms of both social evolution and individual. Most of
the women I work with who are gifted deny that they are, or are totally
embarrassed to admit it. It seems I am always teaching women about the
characteristics of giftedness, and asking them to look at themselves:
'Even if you don't want to admit this out loud because you think it's
immodest or because you're embarrassed, at least in your own heart of
hearts admit what you're dealing with.' [...] Isolation
seems to be a common issue for gifted women, Dr. Noble feels. "And part
of the isolation has to do with introversion. Not all, certainly, but
I'd say the majority of gifted women
are introverted. And introversion by itself leads one to
isolate. "When
you're introverted in an introverted culture, there's more acceptance;
but America is a very extroverted culture. To be introverted in an
extroverted culture is to sort of give you a double whammy. "So
along with understanding what giftedness is all about, it's important
to understand what introversion is all about, and that it's a normal
temperament, and they really get their energy from solitude. So they
need that solitude. That's healthy. In fact, to not make space for solitude really puts
gifted women at grave risk for developing everything from
depression to eating disorders, as a way of trying to create enough
personal space, maybe totally unconsciously. "Another
thing is that part of giftedness involves an affective awareness. Not a hundred
percent of the time, but a lot of gifted women have intense radar;
they're very psychic, and that can intensify introversion, if you
withdraw from crowds because you always feel raw, or pick up too much
energy. So if you do have that kind of sensitivity, you really have to
honor it, and respect it, and learn how to choose those energies that
nourish you and avoid those that drain you. That's hard. We're learning
all the time. "In
terms of finding peers, you have to realize it is hard, and you have to work at it.
[...] The internet is providing the means to find and explore
relationships. "That's
particularly important for rural women," notes Dr. Noble. "It's a
little bit easier to find kindred
spirits if you're in a city, or if you're connected with a university
or some kind of idea factory. It's much harder if you're in the
corporate world or the retail world, or at home with small
children." [...] "There
are a number of qualities that gifted women possess that can easily get
mislabeled and misdiagnosed. For instance, those gifted women who are
very verbal are often told they talk too much. Now, it is true that
many gifted women talk a lot. "Some
of them do in fact talk too much, and don't know how to listen well.
But I have seen, particularly in adolescents, that gifted girls who are
very high energy and high verbal are often punished by teachers for
those qualities, and the qualities are then negatively represented,
rather than positively acknowledged. [...] Gifted
women tend to combine qualities that we tend to ascribe to both
genders. So for instance, you get women who are highly sensitive and highly empathic and
compassionate (which are all components of psychic ability),
combined with high energy and high
drive, high independence and autonomy, which are qualities that
the culture rewards in men but not in women. "So in
some ways, the pathologizing comes from the fact that gifted women, by their very nature, don't
fit the narrowly prescribed gender roles. And not just in a
developed country like America, or Canada, but also in developing
countries, where roles are generally even more traditional. "Societal
attitudes create what we consider normalcy to be. So when you talk
about pathology, you are talking about deviation from what is presumed
to be in the norm, and anything that is outlying statistically, or
different from what we consider the norm, gets labeled pathology or
'bad.' [...] "Giftedness,
per se, has often been described as pathology. I've had a lot of
clients who come to me who have been told they are 'too sensitive', 'too empathic', 'too
smart', 'too verbal.' I can't think of one person I've seen who
hasn't been pathologized, for being 'too' -- and I put that in quotes
-- all those things: 'too high energy', 'too quirky', 'too
introspective', 'too intuitive' -- blah, blah, blah. "It
just depends on the setting. One of my clients is a physician who's
extremely intuitive: when she was in medical school, she could make
diagnoses that she hadn't the knowledge yet to be able to make, but she
could read the body. And of course, what did her professors tell her?
'You're so weird.' "That's
why I think if a person, a gifted woman, is going to seek help from a
therapist, the first she has to do is educate herself about giftedness.
That is critical. And then she has to educate her therapist about
giftedness, because very, very few mental health practitioners know the
first thing about it." Consider
the Situation and Setting In the
classroom, a gifted child's perceived inability to stay on task is
likely to be related to boredom, curriculum, mismatched learning style,
or other environmental factors. Gifted children may spend from
one-fourth to one-half of their regular classroom time waiting for others to catch up --
even more if they are in a heterogeneously grouped class. Their
specific level of academic achievement is often two to four grade
levels above their actual grade placement. Such children often respond
to non-challenging or slow-moving classroom situations by "off-task"
behavior, disruptions, or other attempts at self-amusement. Gifted individuals face many challenges.
One of them may be in getting correctly identified by psychotherapists
and others as gifted. It's
well known among researchers of the gifted, talented and creative that
these individuals exhibit greater intensity and increased levels of
emotional, imaginational, intellectual, sensual and psychomotor
excitability and that this is a normal pattern of development. It is
because these gifted children and adults have a finely tuned
psychological structure and an organized awareness that they experience
all of life differently and more Intensely than those around them. These
characteristics, however, are frequently perceived by psychotherapists
and others as evidence of a mental disturbance because most of the
population lacks accurate information about the special characteristics
of gifted individuals, couples and families. Most
people don't know that what is
considered normal for the gifted is most often labeled as neurosis in
the general population and as a result, the gifted are personally and
emotionally vulnerable to a variety of unique relationship difficulties
at home, work, school and in the community. Since
the gifted function with relatively high levels of intensity and
sensitivity, when they seek therapy they are frequently misdiagnosed
because therapists receive no specialized training in the
identification and treatment of persons who have advanced and complex
patterns of development. Therapeutic
assessment of gifted persons with asynchronous development, heightened
levels of awareness, energy and emotional response, and an intense
level of inner turmoil often results in their developmental transition
being mislabeled as a personality or attentional disorder. Histrionic,
dysthymic, cyclothymic, borderline, narcissistic, ADHD (Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) are
a few of the diagnostic labels mistakenly used to describe normative
stages of positive disintegration. The
results of this type of misdiagnosis can range from benign neglect to
misguided counseling strategies that invalidate and attempt to
'normalize' the complex inner process of the gifted. When
misdiagnosed gifted clients are prescribed medication to suppress the
"symptoms of giftedness" there is the danger that the wonderful inner
fury of the gifted process will be neutralized, thus minimalizing the
potential for a life of accomplishment and fulfillment. As a
result, those who have the most to offer society are the least likely
to get their therapeutic needs met. For the gifted, inner conflict is a
developmental rather than a degenerative sign, because it drives the
gifted person forward to replace current ways of thinking and being
with those of higher level development. /// Unique
interpersonal challenges that gifted individuals, couples and families
encounter during their life span include learning to interact in the
mainstream world; manage expectations and pressures to fit the norm; defuse unconscious hostility, resentment,
antagonism and sabotage directed at them because they are perceived as
intellectually, creatively or personally advantaged; set
appropriate boundaries for the utilization of their abilities;
collaborate with others, and manage the daily dilemmas of giftedness
involving relatives, bosses, co-workers, neighbors, counselors,
teachers and other members of the community. Tolerance
for ambiguity & complexity leads to difficulty making decisions, difficulty
with career path Desire
for high stimulus situations: mischief, smug, bored, know-it-all; or
procrastination, risk taking, need to make life difficult in order to
feel like a hero Thinking
too much, can't turn it off, obsessional style Not
having goals or never being satisfied; perfectionism; confusing
exhaustion for accomplishment Are
you a good problem solver? "If
75% of these characteristics fit you, you are probably a gifted
adult. [adapted from the Institute for the Study of Advanced
Development / Gifted Development Center >> also see self-tests : giftedness "Giftedness
was not commonly identified in children until recently, so many adults
are unaware that they were gifted as children. But even those who were
identified tend to believe their giftedness disappeared before
adulthood." from
summary on medscape.com - about article in Am Psychol [2000] by Prof.
Ellen Winner, Boston College and Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School
of Education These
represent those that at least 5 people wrote about or agreed were the
traits of highly creative people. HIGHLY creative people, not just
creative people. Gifted:
Independent, individualist, self-sufficient, stubborn. Bored by
routine. Good sense of humor. Easily occupies own time without
stimulation from others. Likes to be with and converse with adults and
older children. Impatient with no challenge. Considered different by
other children. Generally thoughtful, assuming leadership easily. Good
sense of justice, dependable and responsible. Developing thinking. >> continued
from page 1 ~~~~ Francis
Heylighen, PhD is a research professor at the Free University of
Brussels (VUB), and director of the transdisciplinary research group on
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition". ~ ~ ~ Article published here with kind permission of the author. related pages : intensity
/
sensitivity ~ ~ ~ |
|