About The first question gifted adults ask me is, "How do you know I'm gifted?"
This is how I answer that question.
When gifted adults ask how I know they're gifted, I do two things. First, I tell them what I've noticed. Then, because I know that gifted adults must always make up their own mind, I give them a list of characteristics and ask them to read it and see if they recognize themselves Then we talk.
This is the list I give gifted adults.
While there were many lists of characteristics available to choose from, I put this information together specifically to answer fully that first key question--the question which unlocks the door to a whole new way of seeing and understanding oneself and the world.
To me what's written here expresses the essential experience of being a gifted adult.
The gifted adults I work with in my coaching and psychotherapy practice tell me that they find this information very helpful.
Characteristics of Gifted & Creative Adults
Gifted adults differ intellectually from others and are more sophisticated, more global thinkers who have the capacity to generalize and to see complex relationships in the world.
Gifted adults have a heightened capacity to appreciate the beauty and the wonderment in our universe. They deeply experience the richness of the world and see beauty in human relations, nature, literature.
Gifted adults crave interchanging ideas with other gifted adults and many love to engage in intense intellectual discussions.
Gifted adults have an inner urge to fulfill their own expectations and feel very guilty if they cannot even when no one else sees the need to.
One of the most outstanding features of gifted adults is their sense of humor which differs from others and consists often of subtle jokes, intricate teasing or puns. Gifted people often find that their jokes are received with silence because they are not understood.
Gifted adults often have strong feelings encompassing many areas of life and have difficulty understanding the seemingly inconsistent and shortsighted behavior of others because they can see the foolishness, unfairness and danger of many actions in public and personal life.
Gifted adults have a special problem awareness. They have the ability to predict consequences, see relationships, and foresee problems which are likely to occur.
Because gifted adults know more what is at stake, risk taking for a gifted person may be more difficult than for others because it may take longer for them to decide.
Gifted adults often develop their own method of learning and grasping concepts which can lead to conflict with others who don’t use or understand their method.
Gifted adults have normal feelings of anxiety, inadequacies and personal needs. They struggle to have these needs met and taken care of just like all human beings do.
Gifted adults are often confronted with the problem of having too many abilities in too many areas in which they would like to work, discover and excel.
Gifted adults are often driven by their giftedness and may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their creativity. Giftedness is a drive, an energy, an necessity to act—it’s a need for mastery, intellectually, creatively, and physically which grows from the need to make sense of the world, to understand the world and to create one’s world.
Gifted adults need time for inner life experiences, and to understand themselves. Because it takes quiet time to clarify thoughts and feelings, gifted adults need contemplation, solitude and daydreaming
Gifted adults relate best to others who share their interests.
Gifted adults may have a small circle of friends or sometimes only one, but the relationships are meaningful.
Gifted adults are independent thinkers who do not just automatically accept the decisions of their supervisors. They function well in a participatory community and with those who are accepting of their attitudes and innovations.
Gifted adults have strong moral convictions and many use their specific talents, insights and knowledge for the betterment of the world.
Gifted adults have an understanding of the complexities and interrelatedness of global affairs and have the capacity to replace shortsighted, short-term reactions with careful overall solutions
Adapted from "Gifted Adults: Their Characteristics and Emotions"
by Annemarie Roeper
(310) 828-7121 (626) 797-5977
Misdiagnosis of the Gifted