Why do children who can quickly absorb informations at extraordinary ,levels and develop skills beyond their tender years sink into depression, overwhelming anxiety or strange symptomatology?Clearly they are different from their peers but what explains their tendency to to disavow their uniqueness or see themselves as imposters?This is the dilemmathat I have faced for over 40 years my clinical practice .It is abundantly that the struggle to accept one’s giftedness is a major factoring the emotional turbulence gifted young people face and a major factor depriving them of ‘mental health’.Evenwhen they accept aspects other giftedness they tend to distort how to embrace them.A few years ago, I was working with a vey bright latency aged girl.She excelled in everything she embraced:math violin gymnasticsand yet she was miserably unhappy.Although she always won the end of yeasrhaward for academic excellenceher day to day life was a misery.She would force herself awake at 5 a.m.to study the day’s exams.If shehappened to miss a single answer on her test she would be inconsolable for at least a day; angry at herself and angry all those around her.Unlike many of the children I work with, she acknowledged that she was giftedHer interpretation of what this meant however wasthat she had to be perfect at everything she touched.After many months of working togeterad learningabout her school, friends and family what eventually and painfully surfaced, was that she felt her chief competitorinschool, who was also her oldest friend, was more popular, smarter and more talented than she was.Although this did not seem to be at all true ,this overwhelming conviction fueled her need to constantly prove hoe much better she was.Many gifted youngsters have an existential fear that although they may be very quickened sometimes very accomplished,its only accidental and they are in fact inferior,underservingor autistic.Because they’re incapable of connecting with their own inner lives they’re unable to communicate these worries to preers or parentsand hen ce feel unconnected to their environment.Perfectionism, while common among gifted people, can be a defense against underlying worries about their true vulnerabilities.Since there are so many real gratifications for excelling, addressing perfectionism as a problems ‘a hard nut to crack’.Along with working with the child, it is imperative to work with the parents, most of whom are frantically trying to connect with their offspring but often face rejection.Meeting with parents helps to normalize their offspring’s experiences and conflicts and provides an opportunity for discussing resources such as activities that drain aggression, schools and camps that provide peer groups with similar gifts and problems.Each gifted child is unique in his gifts and his responses to his giftedness.Experience,knowledge and patience go a log way in untangling the elements of the crisis.