>Also see the High Ability site and High Ability – gifted/talented articles
Michele Kane, Ed.D., gave a presentation on Stress and Anxiety: Helping Gifted Kids Cope – which also has helpful perspectives for us adults. She points out that stress is universal and experienced by everyone, and that “Being bright, talented, creative, motivated, smart, ambitious, and even good looking can add to the stress in your life.” [...]
Victoria Cowie, 11, scored 162 on the adult admission tests for Mensa, above the IQ scores thought to have been achieved by Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates. Her father cites one example showing how uncommon she is: “When she was just three years old we were sitting in a cafe and she turned [...]
Mia Wasikowska portrayed an emotionally intense teen gymnast in the psychotherapy drama series “In Treatment.” She has commented, “As a teenager I was very anxious. I had a lot of energy and passion that I wanted to channel into creative things, and I always felt like I wasn’t achieving enough.” [From my post Mia Wasikowska [...]
By Edith Johnston PhD LPC I have lots of ideas. I am intelligent and inquisitive with lots of interests. Yet, I am insecure and everything seems incongruent as I move through life. Does this sound like something you experience? Being a multi-talented individual, or said another way, a smart person, can lead to this kind [...]
In her Foreword to the book “Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon” by Willem Kuipers, Linda Silverman of the Gifted Development Center writes: The vast majority of gifted adults are never identified. Even those who were tested as children and placed in gifted programs often believe that their giftedness disappeared by the time they reached [...]
By Sarah Williams. Pop culture as a medium always strives to focus on the extraordinary. As an escape and release from everyday tedium, it is only natural that it would gravitate towards extremes, the ends of the everyday spectrum that tend toward the fantastic, unbelievable, and unforgettable. Hence, many highly gifted characters have graced television [...]
“Even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift.” That comment is from a NY Times op-ed by David Brooks, who adds, “His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. “Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among [...]
Arianna Huffington was described by her friend and author Sugar Rautbord [in a Vanity Fair article] as “probably one of the most intellectually seductive human beings on the face of the planet. “She has such a powerful brain, and she exudes an intellectuality that is almost sexual.” One of the myths of highly talented people [...]
.. eeing a TV bio of Taylor Swift a while ago, I was very struck by her self-assurance and belief in her abilities from an early age, and her assertiveness to realize her exceptional musical talents. In her recent performance on the CMA Awards (the 44th annual Country Music Association Awards), she impressed me even [...]
Amber Tamblyn comments about her character Martha: “I think you’re going to see someone who has been so much in the world of academia and knowledge that she really never progressed or matured in a social sense.” In the TV series “House,” Amber Tamblyn portrays Martha M. Masters – a “genius third-year med student who, [...]
Gordon Parks [1912-2006] was often referred to as a renaissance man, as noted in an obituary by Dennis McLellan [Los Angeles Times March 8, 2006], and lived up to the label: “In addition to his photography, film work and poetry, he composed a symphony, sonatas, concertos, film scores, and wrote novels, instructional photography manuals, essays [...]
Therapist Belinda Seiger, PhD says she has “known many gifted women who seem to possess what I refer to as the ‘rage to achieve.’ “They are constantly driven to learn, to create and to be intellectually productive even while raising young children.” Author Amy Bloom (photo; she is Writer-in-Residence, Wesleyan University) has commented on the [...]
These are two of the many highly talented teens honored by fellowships from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. John Michael Colón, Age: 17 – His portfolio, Art as Empathy: A Study of the Syncretic Potential of Literature, demonstrates the utility of literature and art in society. He writes that although human beings want to [...]
When I was a child, and even through graduate school, I thought people were going to find out I was a fraud. I thought other talented people were doing better, achieving more and having more fun doing it, and I still tend to compare myself unfavorably with others on a daily basis. In her book, Emotional Intensity [...]
Like many gifted children, my childhood was peppered with incidents of parents and other adults telling me to be calm, or even more devastating, to be ‘normal.’ If adults are uncomfortable with their own emotions they may be especially uncomfortable around the intensities of gifted children. What effect does this have on gifted kids? Recognizing [...]
Many talented artists share traits such as perfectionism and a need to “get it right” – and also high sensitivity, which can make fame and attention very stressful, even overwhelming. See the post Kristen Stewart and shyness and sensitivity for one example. In her article Jesse Eisenberg on playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The [...]
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Site author: Douglas Eby, M.A./Psychology, is a writer and researcher on the psychology of creative expression and personal growth, especially for high ability adults. He is publisher of the Talent Development Resources series of sites.
