Paula Prober is a psychotherapist and consultant specializing in counseling gifted adults and youth.
This is an excerpt of her conversation at the 2021 edition of the Empaths, Sensitives & Intuitives Summit. She was interviewed by host Melissa Schwartz.
In her article "Counseling Gifted Adults – A Case Study” Paula Prober writes about Susan, who “had known that she was different since she was seven.
“Her thoughts and feelings had never fit into the box that was comfortable and reassuring for most children.
“Her appetite for learning was insatiable. Reading was more nourishing than food.
“Thinking, analyzing, and synthesizing were better than Barbie.”
But, as Prober notes, there can be some disruptive consequences of having this kind of “always active” mind:
“She worried about everything: poverty, world peace, and the loss of the rain forests.
“It kept her awake at night.
“The adults around her said that she was too young to be concerned with such things.
“That didn’t help. To her classmates, she just seemed weird–certainly not birthday party material.”
Being different and gifted can be confusing and isolating.
“All of these reactions confused and saddened Susan but no one was explaining to her that she was different because she was gifted: She had a mind running deeper and faster than most. No one told her that seven year olds don’t feel responsible for saving the world.”
See related article with links to her "Counseling Gifted Adults” article, plus more quotes by Prober, therapist Sharon M. Barnes, John Lennon, and others: Gifted and creative adults are different from an early age.
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