Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902 – 1980) worked with creative adults and adolescents, and developed a theory of personality and emotional development that is often applied toward understanding the psychology of gifted and talented individuals.

One aspect of his Theory of Positive Disintegration is the concept of unusual intensity and reactivity, as Lesley Sword explains in her article Overexcitabilities in Gifted Children:

“Overexcitability is a sensitivity of the nervous system, an expanded awareness of and a heightened capacity to respond to stimuli such as noise, light, smell, touch etc.”

[Also see the Highly Sensitive site.]

Stephanie Tolan notes the original Polish word can be translated more literally as “superstimulatabilities” and “involves not just psychological factors but central nervous system sensitivity.”

She describes the Psychomotor form of Overexcitability or Excitability: “This is often thought to mean that the person needs lots of movement and athletic activity, but it can also refer to the issue of having trouble smoothing out the mind’s activities for sleeping. Lots of physical energy and movement, fast talking, lots of gestures, sometimes nervous tics.”

From the page Dabrowski / advanced development.

Sword describes the Psychomotor form as “surplus of energy: rapid speech, pressure for action, restlessness impulsive actions, nervous habits and tics, competitiveness, sleeplessness.”

Michael Jackson exemplified a number of these qualities as a singer and dancer.

But for some people, including him, this high sensitivity and surplus of central nervous system activity can be very challenging.

Jackson took a variety of drugs that included powerful sedatives, reportedly more than ten Xanax every night. “He had a long-running addiction to several prescription painkillers, including the powerful narcotics Diprivan and Oxycontin.” [From article Jackson Death Puts Focus on Painkiller Addiction.]

The clip of Jackson is from the new documentary This Is It.

> Also see related post: Developing Creativity: Excitabilities – Our Teeming Brains

gifted adults, gifted adult information, gifted adult personality, psychology of giftedness, high ability, high aptitude

“I did not perform well socially in junior high. I was a strange girl and I was in a lot of pain because of that, like most teenagers.” Claire Danes

Elaine Aron, PhD comments on some of the consequences of being very sensitive as a child: “…family and school problems, childhood illnesses, and the like all affected you more than others. Furthermore, you were different from other kids and almost surely suffered for that.”

[From post: Sensitive and suffering as a teen: Claire Danes on being shy and high achieving]

If identified early in life as gifted, a prodigy, a Wunderkind, genius etc – that label can be another kind of burden, along with not fitting in socially.

Many highly talented people do achieve great things or feel creatively fulfilled as adults, but there can be many challenges on the way, including coming to terms with an identity as ‘gifted’ or ‘exceptional.’

In her article Growing Up Gifted Is Not Easy, Elaine Aron (author of The Highly Sensitive Person) writes about people being put into a role as a beyond-human exemplar, which can start in childhood or as a teen.

She writes, “There’s one thing about archetypes: No one can be identified with an archetype without being greatly damaged by it. It’s just too much.

“Women who identify with the Great Mother, or are identified by others with Aphrodite (e.g. Marilyn Monroe), for example, or men who identify with the Hero (JFK, Martin Luther King Jr.) will sooner or later try to do things or be expected to do things beyond human capabilities, or be scapegoated for failing, or martyred in some way.”

From post Gifted, talented and archetyped

Both idolized and resented

In her article Young + Brilliant, Blessed + Cursed Patti Hartigan writes about young people with exceptionally high levels of intelligence often struggling “to balance the life of the mind and their place in the regular, workaday world, a struggle that intensifies as they reach adulthood.

“Starting with their first social or academic encounters, they face conflicting reactions to their talents. On one hand, they are viewed as anomalies, strange beings who don’t fit in with other children and who are sent out to the school hallway (or, in one humiliating case, to the classroom closet) to work independently.

“They are often resented by teachers and peers. Such treatment can do irrevocable damage, especially for those who are awkward or shy.

“At the same time, learning comes so easily that they are used to excelling, and they are frequently singled out for their extraordinary abilities.”

They are no longer alive to ask, but maybe my parents had some awareness of these kinds of problems – not that I was a prodigy, by any means – and chose to pretty much ignore my differentness, except for allowing my grade school to advance me a couple of grades “on account of my height” as they explained it.

Why bother acknowledging your gifted qualities?

In her post Gifted Adult – Pros and Cons of a Label Elisa notes, “There is a lot of debate about whether it’s good to apply the label ‘gifted’ or bad.  Certainly a lot of people reject the label, possibly because gifted is a terrible word and there is ambiguity as well as misconceptions about what being a gifted adult is.”

But, she adds, “For me, having the experience of my life explained by someone else, having words put to it, is affirming.  To re-consider some of the qualities that I thought were particular to me as part of a shared experience is helpful.  I think differently and have emotional responses that are are often out of step with people around me.  I appreciate having some context for my unusual perspective and I am less likely to see it as ’something wrong with me’ personally but to recognize it within the framework of my being a gifted adult.”

Life coach Lisa Lauffer affirms, “There is a point to exploring giftedness as a grownup, and this is it: if you are a gifted person, you can only live the life you were meant to live if you acknowledge and integrate your giftedness into your adult life.” [From her post Exploring Grownup Giftedness: What’s the Point?]

One aspect of that recognition is authentic, positive self esteem.

Stephanie S. Tolan notes in her article Self-Knowledge, Self-Esteem and the Gifted Adult, “Many gifted adults seem to know very little about their minds and how they differ from more ‘ordinary’ minds.  The result of this lack of self-knowledge is often low, sometimes cripplingly low self esteem.”

It may not be comfortable, or help us be as “ordinary” or compatible with the majority as we may feel we want to be, but recognizing and accepting ourselves as exceptional can help us realize our talents. Isn’t that worth some discomfort?

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In a very real sense, everyone may be called “underachieving” regardless of whether they are gifted or not. One short definition is “Performance below potential.”

But high ability and giftedness are much more than advanced potential, high scores and notable achievements. What really matters in talking about underachievement is the inner experience of “falling short of potential” – how that impacts our identity, esteem, life satisfaction and mental health.

Many of us are “naturally” self-critical, and not fulfilling more of the wide range of talents we have can be yet another source of fuel for calling ourselves deficient.

Video: Gifted Underachievement – Jerald Grobman, M.D.

This video is an excerpt from the 90 Minute Webinar Presentation by SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) “Understanding and Treating Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar Disorder and Underachievement in Gifted Children, Adolescents and Young Adults” – presented by Jerald Grobman, M.D.

From the SENG Webinar Program info page: “Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and underachievement are common concerns of gifted children, adolescents and young adults and their parents.”

See related articles at his site Psychotherapy Services for the Gifted.

In one of those articles: Underachievement in Exceptionally Gifted Adolescents and Young Adults: A Psychiatrist’s View, Dr. Grobman writes, “By mid-adolescence, these exceptionally gifted young people had begun to seriously and consistently undermine their gifted development. Each limited how he or she used his or her potential strengths and began to act in other very self-destructive ways.”

Whose standards?

Dr. Grobman comes across as very helpful and sympathetic about his gifted patients – but many health professionals may be uninformed about gifted characteristics and challenges, and may tend to pathologize some behaviors. Cutting, for example, is often considered a disorder. But it can be a temporary self-medication maneuver. Angelina Jolie said of her self-cutting, “It was a release of some kind.”

In her post Underachievement and the Gifted Adult, Elisa writes, “Not working to your potential.  How often have many gifted adults encountered that phrase in their life?  How often do gifted adults say that to themselves?   I think the problem with that phrase is how ‘working to your potential’ or ‘living up to your potential’ is generally understood in narrow terms.  As a child it means getting exceptional grades.  As an adult it means earning a lot of money and/or eminence in your profession…. ‘‘Performance below expectation’ – who’s expectation?  And how do we understand ‘performance’?”

Good questions. But another issue is self-limiting behavior patterns.

In his book Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement, Kenneth W. Christian, PhD defines how “Self Limiting High Potential Persons etch enduring pathways over time by repeating their characteristic self-defeating methods.”

For example, one pattern is “Sleepers. The style most often seen in people from families or communities without models or traditions of high achievement. Sleepers lack accurate information about themselves, the extent of their talent, and ways to express it.”

Read more of his patterns on the page Self-limiting.

adult underachievement, gifted adult personality, psychology of giftedness, high ability, high aptitude

The image is food critic Anton Ego from the movie Ratatouille [video clip].

I was reminded of the stuffy and dour character while reading Laura Berman Fortgang’s The Little Book on Meaning , and her reference below to “high analytical ability.. often black-and-white thinkers.. Quick to decide what is good and what is bad..”

I know I sometimes limit my appreciation of nuances and grays on account of that tendency.

Here is the excerpt by Fortgang :

We are all faced with choices… Do we allow ourselves to be fear-minded, anxiety driven, scarcity-minded? Do we allow anger, hurt, and resentment to rule our minds? Do we dig ourselves deep into a trench and fight all the time causing ourselves great stress, even for a “good” cause like a paycheck?

Do we linger in the glory of our discontent? Any of these mental states involve a choice on our part. It’s not simple to make the choice, unfortunately – there may be work needed in therapy to unravel the root beliefs – but it is absolutely possible to free ourselves from fearful and angry thoughts to embrace thoughts that nurture love and connection.

What’s interesting is that some of the smartest people with the most developed minds suffer the most at the hand of their own high analytical ability when it comes to having happiness and meaning in their life.

These often black-and-white thinkers, who see very little that is gray or colorful, are highly and quickly decisive but who can also easily miss joy in the way they process.

Quick to decide what is good and what is bad, little room is left for mystery and discovery and some of the other elements that slow us down long enough to feel meaning.

barriers to personal growth and development, emotional intelligence, intellect and ego

To avoid being seen as too weird or different, and to fit in better with others, gifted children often learn to stifle or cover up their unusual cognitive and other abilities. As adults, many still follow a pattern of hiding.

When she began directing in the forties, Ida Lupino sometimes claimed not to know the best way to line up a shot or specify a line reading, explaining “Men hate bossy women. Sometimes I pretend to know less than I do.” [From my article Gifted Women: Identity and Expression.]

She was working in a more restrictive and even misogynistic era (the photo is Lupino directing a scene in her movie “Mother of a Champion,” 1951), but some research on contemporary gifted girls and women indicates they often suppress their advanced abilities.

But covering up, not acknowledging, or discounting our talents and abilities is not just something done by girls and women.

“Unfortunately most of us have little sense of our talents and strengths, much less the ability to build our lives around them,” Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton declare in their book Now, Discover Your Strengths.

“Instead, guided by our parents, by our teachers, by our managers, and by psychology’s fascination with pathology, we become experts in our weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair these flaws, while our strengths lie dormant and neglected.”

Discounting or disparaging

We may even discount or disparage our exceptional perceptions, sensory processing and other aspects of giftedness as “flaws” – especially in the face of negative social reactions and ignorance on the part of medical professionals.

Sally M. Reis, Ph.D. “found that gifted girls do not want to be considered different from their friends and same-age peers. Indeed, a tendency exists for many females, regardless of age, to try to minimize their differences.

“For many gifted girls, however, the problem becomes more difficult as they become women and their talents and gifts set them apart from their peers and friends.”

But there is also a more insidious problem: “In addition to hiding abilities, some gifted and talented women begin to doubt that they really have abilities.”

From her article Internal barriers, personal issues, and decisions faced by gifted and talented females.

In some talent domains or fields, being different and exceptional is much more supported – such as entertainment. The photo is Anna Paquin, who won an Oscar at age 11 for The Piano. [From my post Anna Paquin and others on realizing multiple talents.]

Hiding is not limited to U.S. culture.

A recent article in the Gifted / talented news feed says “It is estimated that five per cent of the population below 14 years, or about 445,000 Malaysian children from all socio-economic strata and ethnicities, are likely to be gifted and talented.

“Raising a gifted child is not easy. ‘They do everything at the wrong time,’ says one parent. A gifted child told me that he likes doing things that others cannot do. But he does not like it when others tease him, call him names and won’t play chess with him any more.

“He is excited about astrophysics, but he is lonely in learning about it because other children are not as enthusiastic. Hence, he finds it hard to sustain social interactions. Afraid of being ridiculed, teased, resented or ostracised, he goes to great lengths to hide his giftedness.”

From Nurturing the gifted and talented, by SHARIFAH HAPSAH SHAHABUDIN, New Straits Times Mar 16 2009.

Back to the idea of gifted adults and hiding giftedness.

In her article Giftedness in the Workplace: Can the Bright Mind Thrive in Organizations?, Mary-Elaine Jacobsen (author of The Gifted Adult) points out, “Exceptional intellectual and creative abilities can lead to highly successful careers, sometimes in multiple fields… From time to time relatively unfettered bright minds alter the direction of their domain as a whole. Stories of eminent figures fascinate and inspire us.

[Photo: Barack Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School.]

“At the same time glorified images of illustriousness can imply that early in life those who are truly gifted know exactly what they are to do with their lives and pursue their rightful lifework unimpeded — all the way to the full realization of their potential and the rewards of eminence.”

She cautions, “However, the transition from full-time learner to full-time worker can be a bumpy road indeed, and can easily engender deep disappointment instead of the anticipated coming-of-age gratification.”

In her article Discovering the Gifted Ex-Child, Stephanie S. Tolan notes, “The experience of the gifted adult is the experience of an unusual consciousness, an extraordinary mind whose perceptions and judgments may be different enough to require an extraordinary courage.

“Large numbers of gifted adults, aware not only of their mental capacities but of the degree to which those capacities set them apart, understand this… Thinking independently may seem foolhardy or antisocial.”

Feeling frustrated, tied down

She adds, “But for the adult whose life circumstances do not readily provide an arena for the positive use of these abilities the result may be a feeling of frustration, lack of fulfillment, a nagging sense of being tied down, imprisoned, thwarted (Roeper, 1991; Smith, 1992).

“The middle management employee who has the ability to see and devise solutions to various company problems may be seriously frustrated in his job because a boss who lacks that ability does not allow the expression, much less the implementation of those solutions.”

She adds, “The suburban housewife, who has raised several children and worked as a volunteer for innumerable civic associations, may find herself restless, bored and frustrated when the children have left home. Social activities do not fill the void, nor does the sort of routine job she may be tempted to pursue to get herself out of the house.”

Another issue she brings up in her article Self-Knowledge, Self-Esteem and the Gifted Adult is self-identification: “Many gifted adults seem to know very little about their minds and how they differ from more ‘ordinary’ minds.  The result of this lack of self-knowledge is often low, sometimes cripplingly low self esteem.”

Tolan and others point out that it may require great courage, fortitude, and assertiveness to craft a life that allows and encourages the expression of exceptional abilities. But it is worth it.

As Barbara Sher puts it so poetically, “Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do – can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music. You know what to do.”

See Barbara Sher articles.

Also see the pages Self-limiting and Hiding / silencing abilities & talents.
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