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The Joys of Being Gifted

An IQ of 130 is the starting point at which an individual’s cognitive skills and processes are considered to be gifted.

For a complete understanding of what it means to be gifted,however, extra-cognitive or non-cognitive skills and processes need to be considered.

Intuition; imagination;the desire for mastery and the need for independence; a capacity to be inspired; a willingness to be energized by big dreams; uncanny physical abilities and aesthetic sensibilities are hard to define let alone measure and compare against statistical norms. Yet these are the qualities that gifted individuals believe facilitate the smooth working and integration of their different cognitive abilities and the qualities they feel are at the core of their gifted identity.

Clarifying the nature of these extra cognitive qualities and how they function to enhance the cognitive part of their intellect helps explain how and why intellect,musicality,artistic ability,aesthetic sensitivity and athleticism have all developed into the exceptional features of a gifted personality.

Understanding the unique aspects of each gifted person’s extra-cognitive qualities also explains why he/she can experience the world in ways that are deep,rich and complex. When their cognitive and extra-cognitive abilities work in synergy, gifted individuals can feel intense satisfaction,pride and a sense of spiritual exhilaration.

Existential Depression: The Vulnerability of Being Gifted

Difficulty embracing the cognitive and extra-cognitive aspects of being gifted,finding a venue in which to express and use them and an intimate relationship within which to share them can precipitate and existential crisis. Extreme emotional sensitivity can turn an existential crisis into a full blown existential depression.

Gifted individuals appear to be more prone to existential crises and existential depressions during developmental transitions: childhood into adolescence;adolescence into adulthood; adulthood in mid-life.

The symptoms of existential depression include feelings of alienation,social isolation,idealistic disillusionment and detachment from friends and family.

When a gifted individual is in the grip of an existential depression, insatiable curiosity,an affinity for the profound,clairvoyance – the capacity to “see” beyond the ordinary that allows for deep insight – all can feel irrelevant,useless and meaningless.What were once valued as gifted qualities now feel like liabilities and disabilities rather than powerful personal assets. In an existential depression, thinking becomes unfocused and fuzzy;passionate engagement,commitment, motivation and productivity all decline.Convictions develop that some basic physical processes have developed defects.

From the very beginning, gifted children pose unique problems for themselves and for their parents, both of whom often feel that “being gifted is no gift!”How can parents provide enough love, support, and resources for developing giftedness without creating an entitled, arrogant child? These are painful and unanticipated choices for parents. The special personality styles, dramatic physical symptoms, and intense emotional reactions presented by a gifted…
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Gifted young adults often develop anxiety, existential depression,mood swings similar to the symptoms of bipolar disorder and the cognitive problems of ADHD or learning disabilities – the twice exceptional syndrome. These problems can develop not because of neurobiological deficits or because their conflicts with peers,teachers,inadequate curriculum or parents but because of unresolved emotional conflicts about their “inner experience “ of giftedness. The most troublesome conflicts are caused by guilt about possessing an exceptional endowment that permits spectacular precocious accomplishments ,grand visions and outsized ambitions or by insecurity because of the drive to function independently yet the need for intimate relationships on which they can depend. A special therapeutic approach that employs CBT techniques and and understanding of the deeper psychodynamics of giftedness is described below…

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Although gifted adolescents and gifted young adults can become underachievers because of conflicts with their peers,teachers and parents, they also can become underachievers because of unresolved emotional conflicts about their ”inner experience” of giftedness. Chief among these unresolved emotional conflicts about an exceptional endowment that allows for effortless accomplishments well beyond expectations for people their age…
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A psychodynamic approach is an alternative method for the assessment and treatment of learning disabilities and gifted/learning disability syndromes when educational and neuropsychological methods fall short.

It is a comprehensive method that fills the gap left by these two, yet allows for an integrated interpretation of their findings.

A psychodynamic assessment considers the possibility that environmental and emotional factors may be primary causes of learning disabilities and gifted learning disability syndromes.

Psychoeducational and neuropsychological assessments of learning disabilities and gifted learning disability syndromes are based on controversial assumptions that are ultimately pessimistic.

A Psychodynamic approach is based on assumptions that are optimistic

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