Overexcitability... emotional

This is the overexcitability that can often be the most challenging.  (Did I already say that about one of the other ones?)  And no, I didn't take this picture when my daughter was having an actual tantrum.  This was one of her dramatic reenactments.   The feelings of many gifted children can be intense and overwhelming.  When these children are happy, they are ecstatic.  But unfortunately, many of these children and adults are prone to bouts of extreme depression and anxiety.  Researchers have commented on how "existential depression" is often very common among gifted individuals.  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is also very commonly diagnosed among people with higher intelligence.  Both Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla were believed to have suffered from Obsessive Compulsive disorder.

Probably due to this heightened sensitivity, many gifted children and adults are also extremely empathic.  They have strong feelings around issues of fairness and from a very young age are deeply interested in issues of social justice.  Recently, on a family walk one Sunday morning, we passed what was probably the home of a bunch of college students in East Austin.  The yard was strewn with beer bottles and red cups.  My children were outraged that the occupants would have such a blatant disrespect for their environment.  My husband and I had to gently ask them to keep their voices down as we passed the house.  Another example is my son's recent declaration that he is now a vegetarian.  He says that he can't stand that people hurt animals for food.  He is only five. Because he can become very sad at dinner time, we have agreed as a family to not eat meat on certain days of the week out of respect for his beliefs.   This empathic vulnerability makes watching the news difficult.  When my daughter was only three a morning show told the story of someone falling into a large sink hole and dying.  She cried for days.  We haven't really watched morning news shows ever since.  

Often times, because these emotions can seem so overblown and overwrought, as parents, it is very easy to minimize the emotional experiences our young children have.  "This is nothing to get so upset about!"  "Stop crying"  "You have no reason to be angry."  Although these statements are made in an attempt to calm an emotionally overwhelmed child, they actually create confusion and more anxiety.  The child begins to doubt their own experiences.  They begin to judge their feelings.  And on top of that, it doesn't really work to tell someone to calm down anyway.   Validating feelings is a much better strategy, but it can be difficult when you are an emotional parent!  So, I will often notice when I am getting just as emotional as my daughter or son, take a deep breath, and remember the goal.  Then I might ask, "Are you feeling.............?  I might be feeling that way too if that happened to me.  What can we do right now to help you feel better?"  Helping the child to label the emotion, validate the emotion, and then talk through coping strategies not only will help them weather their emotional storm - but it also provides them the tools necessary to weather the next one.  

Next up - The Intellectual Overexcitability!  

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Over-excitability... Psycho-motor

I thought what better way to start then by discussing the overexcitabilities, which are often connected with giftedness. There are many researchers that now believe that looking at the overexcitabilities is a more accurate way of identifying gifted populations than most IQ tests.  Kazimierz Dabrowski, a Polish psychiatrist, psychologist, and physician, is the creator of the “Theory of Positive Disintegration.”  In this theory, he identifies five different overexcitabilities, which are innate intensities that center around five basic traits:  Psycho-motor, Sensual, Imaginational, Intellectual, and Emotional.  Today, I will begin by discussing the Psycho-motor Overexcitability.

Psycho-motor Overexcitability

This is the trait that most often gets misdiagnosed as ADHD by well meaning therapists and teachers.  Even some of our relatives might urge us to get our child to a pediatrician to have them assessed and potentially medicated when they display this overexcitability.  A post discussing the extensive issues with an ADHD diagnosis would be extremely long and not what I want to focus on in this post.  I will say that there is a lot of disagreement within the psychological community about the diagnosis.  With nearly 12% of school aged children, and 20% of teen-aged boys being diagnosed with the disorder, more and more clinicians are concerned about the overdiagnosis of ADHD.  And some clinicians and theorists, such as Dr. Bruce Perry, even doubt the validity of the diagnosis at all.

So what is psycho-motor overexcitability?  Some describe it as an overabundance of physical energy that the child or adult must find ways to express.  The child who exhibits this overexcitability might be extremely competitive, impulsive, and take lots of risks.  They love activities that others might find physically exhausting.  They love to be in motion, whether it be bouncing, climbing, rocking, or tapping their foot.   I remember that as a very young child, my daughter loved the swing on the playground.  It would take all kinds of bribery to get her to relinquish her swing so we could go home.  Children with this excitability also might speak very rapidly and have difficulty with sleep.   When there is no place for the energy to be released, it can become challenging for the child to find ways to cope.  It can also be extremely difficult to manage their behaviors in a traditional classroom setting.   

There is an overlap with this excitability and some of the research on sensory processing disorder, which we will discuss in a later post.   But one thing that is important to note here is how effective some of the strategies used for SPD (sensory processing disordered) kids can be for kids who exhibit psycho-motor overexcitability.  Occupational therapists will often talk about a "sensory diet."  Sensory diets have nothing to do with food.  They have everything to do with finding healthy adaptive ways to help children and adults cope.  Sensory diets are often adapted depending upon which sensory issue the child is dealing with.  Some of the activities that would be useful for a child with psycho-motor overexcitability can include everything from pushing, jumping, pulling, spinning, and even chewing gum.  Here is a great list of sensory activities.   In schools, these activities might include taking a heavy book to the library, erasing the board, or passing out papers.  The goal of the activity is to help the child find a way to break up more passive activities with active ones.  I remember my child's occupational therapist trying to explain to her kindergarten teacher what it was like for my daughter to sit still for longer than fifteen minutes.  She told the teacher that in order for my daughter to sit  completely still, she would have to dissociate to such a great degree that she would not be able to hear the teacher let alone learn anything.  

It is also important to note that research is pretty clear that sitting still isn't really a great way for anyone to learn.  Our bodies are meant to move.  As a professor, I can remember the looks my students would give if I spoke for longer than twenty minutes.  Eyes would be glazed over and I understood that learning had stopped.  So, I would try very hard to break up the lessons with discussion, art activities, role plays, and breaks.  I encouraged doodling and asking questions.   If I understood that my graduate students needed this type of environment in order to most effectively learn, shouldn't we grant the same thing to young students who have an even shorter attention span?  

I thought I would end with this wonderful video by Sir Ken Robinson on changing educational paradigms.  If you haven't seen it before, I can't recommend it enough.  

So, that is psycho-motor overexcitability in a nutshell!  Next post, we will talk about the sensual overexcitability which will also bring us to an even deeper discussion of Sensory Processing Disorder. 

Thanks for visiting!  Please feel free to leave a comment or question... and I will do my best to answer.  

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My Journey

Hi there!  Welcome to my blog.  This is my very first post, which is both exciting and a bit frightening!  This blog is dedicated to all gifted children and adults and the people that love and support them.

Like many others before me, I became interested in the issues related to gifted populations because I was trying to understand my child.  She rolled around before she was three months old.  She walked at nine months old.  At one she spoke well over a hundred words.  But much of her development I believed was due to her temperament.  She needed to always be moving, doing, and investigating.  She rarely ever slept and experienced intense emotions that made for rough parenting early on.  Her sensitivity extended itself to her tactile senses.  It would sometimes take ten tries before I could put her socks on her in a way that she could tolerate - and that was even after we had purchased the seamless variety.   She hated all tags.  There were boxes of beautiful dresses that she refused to wear because there was a seam that was irritating.  I would often worry that the police might come because of the amount of screaming that would happen when I even touched her hair with a brush.

Aside from the sensitivity, I first realized there was something very unique about my daughter just after her second birthday, when she began making art.  I had always felt like it was important to allow her the space to be creative.  She had crayons, markers, and paper readily available… and as long as she didn't draw on the floors or walls, I was happy.  She became a driven artist.  She would go through reams of paper.  It was at two that she began drawing figures and animals.  As she grew older, her artwork became more and more complex.  We would bargain with her in the mornings, so that she would leave her artwork and go to daycare… and then we would bargain again at night, so that she would leave her artwork to go to bed.  The idea of not making art was intolerable to her.  Teachers would often tell me that they had never seen a child so young draw with such proficiency.  And it was easy to understand why she was so skilled.  She was constantly practicing.  While her classmates were learning how to draw circles, our daughter would be drawing entire fairy tales with evil witches, dragons, and princesses.   In the beginning, I tried to save all of her artwork, but quickly, this became an impossible feat.

As a mental health therapist whose specialty has been children, I was accustomed to diagnosing children.  And like many therapist/parents before me - my own child was no exception.  Her constant movement made me fear that she might have attention deficit disorder.  Her tactile defensiveness and drive to create made me fear that she might be on the autism spectrum (only she was too verbal to be autistic and was a social butterfly).  Her emotional intensity was also an area of intense concern for me.  Teachers began to notice and be critical of her differences.  “She doesn't listen.”  “She never follows directions.”  “She is extremely oppositional.”  I learned to hate teacher/parent conferences.

I decided that it was time to have her tested to find out more about what might be happening with my daughter.  It was then that I found out that she was not just bright - but profoundly gifted.  I also found out in that meeting, that she was gifted in a way that would always make the education system difficult for her.  The sensory challenges made a traditional classroom excruciating.  Her divergent thinking style made the classroom tedious.  And her need to constantly ask questions and challenge those around her would most likely always be viewed as oppositional.  The assessor asked if we could pull her from the public school and enroll her in a special classroom made for these types of children.  At the time, this was something we couldn't afford.  The assessor then stated, “Well, I would try to keep her home as often as possible.”   She also recommended that I take my daughter to see an occupational therapist who specializes in work with sensory processing disorder.  Being gifted was sounding less and less like a blessing. 

That meeting was four years ago.  In that time, I have become a voracious reader on all things related to gifted populations.  I have received training in sensory integration issues, gifted education, and recognizing and understanding issues related to executive skills.  I have learned about the over excitabilities and my daughter's need to create.  I have found a wonderful school for my children where their unique idiosyncrasies are celebrated.  Through this extraordinary education that I have received, I have also begun to better understand my own journey and strengths.  I am not entirely "neuro-typical" either.  I also realized that many of the children who had been referred to me for many years with issues of emotional overwhelm, attention deficits, hyperactivity, and oppositionality were quite possibly also unidentified gifted children who were languishing in an educational system that had never been suited for the way that they learn. 

I remember taking my daughter when she was four to see the Grand Canyon.  The sun was setting and we were racing to make it to the canyon before the park closed.  We hiked to the vista point and stared out over the canyon.  My daughter was mesmerized.  It took lots of coaxing to get her to return to the car so that we could drive to the hotel for the night.  She was asleep when we got there.  I remember scooping her up from her car seat and laying her down on the hotel bed.  She opened her eyes slightly and said, “Mommy.  I believe in God.”  Being that both my husband and I are not very religious, this struck me as slightly curious.  I asked her why.  She said, “Because the Grand Canyon was so beautiful.”  My daughter is still extremely challenging, but she is also utterly amazing. 

This year, I started my own private practice in Austin, Texas.  Although I have worked with a multitude of issues in my sixteen years as a mental health therapist, I knew that it would be important for me to pick one population to specialize in.  I decided that I wanted to focus on talented and gifted adults and children.  Because of my journey, I am deeply aware of the trials and tribulations that comes with the label of "gifted".  Therapists do not receive education regarding high intelligence and how it impacts mental health.  Those incorrect notions that gifted individuals are not needing of help and will be able to succeed because of their gifts is held by many teachers and therapists alike. I would like to make a positive impact on those working professionals who misdiagnose these children and adults because they don't have the education to understand the difference.   And lastly, I wanted to concentrate on gifted youth and adults because I find them amazing.  I love making art, talking, and listening to these divergent expressive thinkers.  I want to help them find their voice, recognize and accept their talents, and understand and cope with their challenges.  And I want to help their parents find ways to live and love their intensity.

I am writing this blog to share information and to have a place for my thoughts.  I am a passionate advocate for this population.  I now understand that "gifted" does not mean that you will always do well in school or succeed in life.  These children and adults are often not the over achievers.  Who knows what amazing potential we are throwing away if we do not change our system to embrace these divergent thinkers, understand their intensity, and challenge them appropriately?  

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