Issue 9: The Intense Mind
Living with a highly active mind may or may not feel like a gift, though people who have one may (or may not) have been dubbed “gifted” as children.
In this issue, our contributors share their professional experience, research, and personal struggles related to this way of being as it’s experienced in adulthood.
Living Life with an Intense Mind A Letter from the Editor for Issue Nine
Editor in Chief Jessie Mannisto introduces our new editors, invites you to take a survey, and highlights the issue’s theme of exploring that thing we (reluctantly) call giftedness.
Life in the Rainforest: Sensitivity, Intensity, and Giftedness An Interview with Psychotherapist Paula Prober
Paula Prober coined the term “rainforest mind” to describe those gifted, complex individuals she works with as a psychotherapist. And though having a rainforest mind may be uncommon, rainforest minds generally have some commonalities, as she explained when she sat down with us.
Maturing Through Creativity: A Conceptual Model of Creativity Development in Young People
How does creativity contribute to adolescents’ psychosocial growth? Here Krystyna Laycraft shares her doctoral research on the subject and shows why the theory of positive disintegration is particularly relevant to the highly creative.
Regulate Overexcitability to Empower Your Voice – Part II: The Mind
Voice coach Laura Stavinoha explains how to keep your intense mind from running away with you while you speak, leaving your audience in its dust.
Cancel Culture and the Intellectually Intense Part I: Why We Need a Healthy & Courageous Speech Ideal
It’s always been hard to be a questioner, but today’s political atmosphere—combined with digital mobbing tools—have made it harder than ever. What’s a good-faith questioner to do?
Third Factor Reads: Extreme Intelligence by Dr. Sonja Falck
Dr. Sonja Falck’s new book dives into the psychosocial experience of high IQ individuals across their lifespan. Focusing on the tendency for such people to feel set apart from others, Falck observes that they tend to fall into one of four relational styles and offers thoughts on how they progress—or regress—from one style to another.