The author highlights online resources that connect gifted adults, emphasizing that the internet reduces isolation. The post introduces blogs such as Your Rainforest Mind and Discovering Your Awesome, describing their focus on self-understanding, emotional support, connection, and practical guidance for gifted adults seeking community and insight.
This reflection explores the emotional life of gifted adults: feeling different, experiencing intense empathy and sensitivity, and encountering strong reactions to beauty and suffering. It describes sleepless concern for the world, the effort to cultivate personal balance, and the intense energy gifted people bring to caring and creativity.
The author urges attention to the needs of gifted elders in hospitals and nursing homes, outlining sensitivities such as medication reactions, overexcitabilities, and spiritual or intellectual needs. Families and clinicians can support mental stimulation, nutrition, cultural preferences, and advocacy to improve care and reduce stress.
Felice Kaufmann argues that achievement alone does not create a lasting, meaningful life. True success involves understanding one’s real needs and finding constructive, personally meaningful ways to meet them—whether through major accomplishments or deep relationships—and emphasizes the importance of connection.
Helen Prince recounts discovering her giftedness later in life, describing upbringing, education and a teaching career marked by sensitivity and missed promotions. After testing placed her in the top two percent and joining Mensa, she reflects on overlooked giftedness among the poor and urges awareness so gifted adults can flourish.
Lisa Rivero explores adult giftedness and Kazimierz Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration, arguing that overexcitabilities—intellectual, emotional, imaginational, psychomotor, sensual—can fuel lifelong self-education and personality development. Facing anxiety and internal conflict can prompt meaningful growth, purpose, and renewed potential in mid-life.
Annemarie Roeper reflects on aging for gifted individuals, describing old age as a period of cumulative loss, diminishing future possibilities, and confronting mystery. She urges honest acceptance, mental preservation, and recognition of elders’ wisdom and societal roles, calling for respect and greater inclusion of elder perspectives.
Many parents of gifted children are themselves gifted but may be unaware; developing self-awareness about intensity, sensitivity, and perfectionism helps parents better relate to and support their children. Recognizing neurological differences and separating parental desires from children’s choices fosters healthier relationships and long-term benefits.
This case study explores how giftedness affects adults’ emotional, social and occupational lives. Using Susan’s therapy, it highlights common issues—sensitivity, existential depression, perfectionism, multipotentiality, and relationship difficulties—and recommends validation, coping strategies, peer connections, and therapeutic support.
This essay argues that giftedness is an enduring mode of mental processing, not merely childhood precocity. Adults with gifted minds often face emotional intensity, social isolation, and frustration when society equates giftedness with visible achievement. Greater recognition and support beyond performance metrics are needed.
