Many multitalented people feel inspired and energized to pursue multiple creative projects, often at the same time. One potential downside is physical and emotional burnout.

Jennifer Westfeldt wrote, produced and acted in “Kissing Jessica Stein” and “Ira & Abby.” For her new movie “Friends With Kids,” she not only wrote the screenplay, acted and produced (along with other people, including her long time partner, actor Jon Hamm), she also directed the “two-year, round-the-clock endeavor” as a Los Angeles Times article describes it – not an uncommonly demanding schedule for movies.

“I must have been crazy to have donned so many hats,” Westfeldt said. “It made good sense for me to direct it, since I was involved in every aspect anyway. But I’m not sure I’d ever do it again.”

Burnout

The image above comes from the post “When Life Loses Its Meaning: The Heavy Price of High Achievement” by Sherrie Bourg Carter, Psy.D. on her blog High Octane Women.

She quotes this passage from the 1980 book, “Burn-Out: The High Cost of Achievement” by Dr. Herbert Freudenberger, who was, she says, the “first person to describe the syndrome known as burnout”…

Continued: Multiple Talents, Multiple Passions, Burnout

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Ashley Judd commented in a 2006 interview about dealing with her challenging early life: “I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself.”

That comment is especially poignant with the release of her new memoir, in which she reveals being sexually abused. In this video from the Today Show, she talks about her challenging family history.

In her memoir Ashley Judd writes, “I am happy to say that each of us has embarked on a personal process of healing, and my family is healthier than it has ever been.

“We have come far. In our individual and collective recoveries, we have learned that mental illness and addiction are family diseases, spanning and affecting generations.

“There are robust strains of each on both sides of my family — manifested in just about everything from depression, suicide, alcoholism, and compulsive gambling to incest and suspected murder — and these conditions have shaped my parents’ stories (even if some of the events did not happen directly to them) as well as my sister’s and my own.

“Fortunately, along with the dysfunction is a legacy of love, resiliency, creativity, and faith in a family whose roots I can trace back at least eight generations in the mountains of Kentucky and about 350 years in America.”

From Ashley Judd details ‘bitter and sweet’ in memoir – MSNBC story with this video and book excerpt.

Her book is All That Is Bitter & Sweet: A Memoir

Compensating for chaos

Ashley Judd revealed in an earlier magazine interview [Glamour, August 2006] that she participated in a 47-day treatment program to overcome lifelong emotional problems including depression, isolation and co-dependent relationships.

“I needed help,” Judd says. “I was in so much pain.”

With a “chaotic” and “dysfunctional” childhood, Judd says she compensated by becoming a “hyper-vigilant child” who was faultless in every way.

She attended 13 schools in 12 years and alternately lived with her mother, Grammy-winning country singer/songwriter Naomi Judd; her father, Michael Ciminella; and her grandparents.

“Supposedly, my sister (Wynonna, also a Grammy winner) was the ‘messed-up’ one, and I was the ‘perfect’ one.”

Getting validation

During a family visit to Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas, where Wynonna, 42, was being treated for food addiction, the De-Lovely and Come Early Morning actress was approached by counselors about treatment after emotional problems became apparent.

“They said, ‘No one ever does an intervention on people like you. You look too good. You’re too smart and together. But you (and Wynonna) come from the same family, so you come from the same wound.’ No one had validated my pain before,” Judd says.

Letting go of perfectionism

Judd learned that she was using sleep to deal with uncomfortable feelings and that her habit of wiping down plastic surfaces on planes and hotels was all about control. “Now I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself.”

The effects of her treatment are profound, she says, and has improved her friendships and her marriage to race car driver Dario Franchitti.

“I was unhappy, and now I’m happy. Now, even when I’m having a rough day, it’s better than my best day before treatment.”

[Quotes from USA Today usatoday.com article by Karen Thomas, 7/4/2006]
~~

Ashley Judd, dealing with perfectionism, treating depression, sexual abuse and therapy, addiction therapy

Smoking weed, drinking and trying some other drugs, Weed Girl preferred the pot smoking which she explains “took the edge off of her brain.”

This was the beginning of Weed Girl’s new lifestyle which landed her in jail and rehab several times each.

Sadly, by the time I met her, Weed Girl was pretty convinced that she was just a big screw-up and had forgotten about any of her strengths.

As with with many gifted people who hear the dual messages of “wow, you’re so smart or creative or talented,” along with the “you’re too much too handle” message, Weed Girl never learned how to cope with her own busy mind.

Instead of developing the essential coping skills for managing what I call a “rage to achieve,” many gifted adults grow up doing exactly what Weed Girl learned to do, that is they learn how to “numb and dumb” their passion and sensitivity by smoking pot not just once a day, but all day every day.

Continued in article Weed Girl, by Belinda Housenbold Seiger, PhD, LCSW.

Also see related post: Gifted and Talented, Drugs and Alcohol

gifted adults and substance abuse, drug abuse and sensitivity, HSP and addiction, gifted/talented and drug abuse, highly sensitive people and substance abuse, gifted adults and drugs

Caltech tragedy raises questions

A news story about two Caltech students who died of suicide in the weeks before the recent commencement made me wonder again: Do more gifted people die from suicide? Are high ability people more vulnerable?

The Caltech students who died were senior Jackson Ho-Leung Wang, a mechanical engineering student from Hong Kong, and junior Brian Go, a computer science and applied and computational mathematics major from Maryland.

The Caltech Counseling Center page Depression/Suicide Prevention reports: “In the general U.S. population it is estimated that 2 to 3 percent of men and 4 to 9 percent of women are depressed at any given time.  Suicide is now the second leading cause of death in U.S. college students, and suicide in the young has tripled over the past 45 years.”

Suicide among the creatively gifted

The Hoagies’ Page on Depression and Suicide declares, “Although it is a popular notion that gifted children are at risk for higher rates of depression and suicide than their average, no empirical data supports this belief, except for students who are creatively gifted in the visual arts and writing (see Neihart & Olenchak..). Nor, however, is there good evidence that rates of depression and suicide are significantly lower among populations of gifted children.”

Another expert source notes, “There seems to be a greatly increased rate of depression, manic-depressive illness, and suicide in eminent creative people, writers and artists especially. The incidence of mental illness among creative artists is higher than in the population at large.”

From Creativity, the Arts, and Madness – by Maureen Neihart, Psy.D.

Sylvia Plath

One example of a creatively gifted person who died by suicide was Sylvia Plath [1932 - 1963]. She published her first poem when she was eight and was “Sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection in everything she attempted,” according to the Short Biography on sylviaplath.de.

“She was, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A’s, winning the best prizes.”

She described one of her suicide attempts in her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. “After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.”

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, who has written books on depression, including her own, says “Plath, like many people with dramatic lives, suffered from severe depression. Teenagers may appreciate Plath because they are experiencing intense moods and emotions for the first time. They are also at the average age for the onset of depression.”

The image is a self-portrait by Sylvia Plath, from the profile page on Sylvia Plath.

Nicholas Hughes

On March 16, 2009, Plath’s son, Nicholas Hughes, an expert in freshwater fish, committed suicide at the age of 47.

A news story reported, “Unlike his sister Frieda, who has dealt with their harrowing family history partly by talking about it and scrutinising it in her writing, her poetry and her art, Dr Hughes had always actively avoided the subject.

“I never heard Nick tell anyone about his parentage,” his friend Joe Saxton said. “He wasn’t embarrassed; it just wasn’t something he wanted to be a feature of him. That’s the irony. He spent his life trying to get away from all this, to find a place where he could be himself. Then the stupid bugger commits suicide and starts it all up again.”

From Ted Hughes death, not Sylvia Plath, tipped son Nicholas into depression, The Australian.

Trying to “get away” from your depression may be a natural impulse, but when it becomes active and enduring denial of depression, it may be deadly.

Sinead O’Connor

Sinead O’Connor realized her ‘demon’ needed medical attention: “I began to have this quiet little voice every now and then – although ‘voice’ is the wrong way to put it. It’s your own thoughts just gone completely skew-whiff: ‘Look at that tree, you might hang yourself on it.’ Until the volume went up so loud that I took myself to hospital.”

From post Sinead O’Connor renews her creativity by dealing with depression.

Unfortunately, there are not always alarms.

A serious issue

In Growing Up Gifted Is Not Easy, Elaine Aron, PhD. writes, “This piece was inspired by an article in The New Yorker titled “Prairie Fire,” about the suicide of a gifted early-adolescent boy. His death came as a complete surprise to everyone who knew him.”

In his article An Overview: Understanding and Assessing Suicide in the Gifted, Andrew S. Mahoney, M.S., L.P.C., L.M.F.T. writes, “When discussing the topic of suicide among the gifted population, one runs into the same divergent, often unexplainable, ambiguity associated with this special population.

“Though there is no conclusive evidence that the gifted are more prone to suicide than the non-gifted (Delisle, 1986), suicide among the gifted is a serious issue.”

Social pressure to achieve

High Sensitivity, existential dread – these may be among the reasons high ability people may be vulnerable to suicide, whether or not at a higher rate. But another reason may be social pressure to achieve.

The article Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women (CNN) notes, “One study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they’ve contemplated suicide… ‘Model minority’ pressure — the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally — helps explain the problem.”

Whatever the pressures, whatever the mental health challenges, even people with suicidal depression can be helped. But they need to seek help.

treating depression, developing creativity, suicide and giftedness, depression and creativity

Nick’s universe

In his article The Geek Syndrome, Steve Silberman wrote, “Autism – and its milder cousin Asperger’s syndrome – is surging among the children of Silicon Valley. Are math-and-tech genes to blame?

“Nick is building a universe on his computer. He’s already mapped out his first planet: an anvil-shaped world called Denthaim that is home to gnomes and gods, along with a three-gendered race known as kiman.

“As he tells me about his universe, Nick looks up at the ceiling, humming fragments of a melody over and over. ‘I’m thinking of making magic a form of quantum physics, but I haven’t decided yet, actually,’ he explains.

“The music of his speech is pitched high, alternately poetic and pedantic – as if the soul of an Oxford don has been awkwardly reincarnated in the body of a chubby, rosy-cheeked boy from Silicon Valley. Nick is 11 years old.

Finding a diagnosis

“Nick’s father is a software engineer, and his mother is a computer programmer. They’ve known that Nick was an unusual child for a long time. He’s infatuated with fantasy novels, but he has a hard time reading people.

“Clearly bright and imaginative, he has no friends his own age. His inability to pick up on hidden agendas makes him easy prey to certain cruelties, as when some kids paid him a few dollars to wear a ridiculous outfit to school.

“One therapist suggested that Nick was suffering from an anxiety disorder. Another said he had a speech impediment. Then his mother read a book called Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals.

“In it, psychologist Tony Attwood describes children who lack basic social and motor skills, seem unable to decode body language and sense the feelings of others, avoid eye contact, and frequently launch into monologues about narrowly defined – and often highly technical – interests.

“Even when very young, these children become obsessed with order, arranging their toys in a regimented fashion on the floor and flying into tantrums when their routines are disturbed.

“As teenagers, they’re prone to getting into trouble with teachers and other figures of authority, partly because the subtle cues that define societal hierarchies are invisible to them.

Contined in The Geek Syndrome, by Steve Silberman, WIRED magazine.

Blinded by the brilliance

A speech-language pathologist, and nationally known expert on Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism, Timothy Kowalski notes there’s a classic warning in the field that goes “Don’t be blinded by the brilliance.”

He explains, “Because a lot of parents may perceive their six-year-old holding quantum physics discussions and can tell you everything about the celestial bodies, but they absolutely have no friendships whatsoever. They become blinded by that child’s ability to be so brilliant in that one particular area, but fail to see the whole picture..”

From article: Timothy Kowalski, MA on Asperger’s Disorder.
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Asperger’s disorder, autistic children, autistic students, learning differences

Elyn Saks’ private demons

The photo is Oxford scholar, Yale law student, and USC legal professor Elyn Saks, who revealed in her memoir some of the “horrors and demons of schizophrenia,” as described in the article A secret life of madness, by John M. Glionna (Los Angeles Times), who writes that “she wrestled with uncouth visions, violent commands and suicidal impulses..

“In her worst moments, the TV made fun of her, ashtrays danced and walls collapsed. She believed she was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. The brains of close associates were taken over by aliens.”

A common gene

A National Institute of Mental Health study last year found “Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain’s thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia.

“Three fourths of subjects studied had at least one copy of the [gene] version that results in more efficient filtering of information processed by the brain’s executive hub, the prefrontal cortex.

“However, the same version was also more prevalent among people who developed schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by delusions, hallucinations and impaired emotion that affects one percent of the population.”

From article Common gene version optimizes thinking — but with a possible downside.

An excess of patterns

In his Frontal Cortex blog post about this study, Intelligence and Insanity, Jonah Lehrer [author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist] comments, “This actually makes sense. The human brain is a pattern-making machine. We imagine causality and see intentionality everywhere. Schizophrenics suffer from an excess of patterns. (A delusion is just the perception of a pattern that doesn’t actually exist.) So it’s entirely plausible that the same gene that endows with us the machinery to detect patterns (this involves the prefrontal cortex) is also involved with the machinery underlying madness.”

Lehrer also quotes G.K. Chesterton: “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”

Schizotypal personalities and creativity

According to a related news article, “New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities – people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic – offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.

“Psychologists believe that a number of famous creative luminaries, including Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson and Isaac Newton, had schizotypal personalities.”

From Odd Behavior And Creativity May Go Hand-in-hand.

Fortunately, schizophrenia can be managed far more effectively now.

Oliver Sacks, M.D. (author of Awakenings and Musicophilia) has written that Elyn Saks’ memoir, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness, “showed how, with medication, sensitive support (and, in Professor Saks’s case, psychoanalysis), a deeply schizophrenic person can achieve a life full of creative work and love and friendships.”
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creativity and madness, schizophrenia and creativity, genius brain, Elyn Saks book

Claire Danes on moving past perfectionism

“My therapist gives me permission to accept that I’m human.”

Actor Claire Danes also explained in an interview that, as a kid, she “was on this whole perfection trip. And that’s just totally boring. And arrogant!…

“I finally realized after years of therapy.. that you can encourage yourself to move further in a nurturing way.”

Taking care to “encourage yourself to move further” is, of course, something that people typically choose to manage on their own, but a counselor or therapist can help us do it more fully and effectively.

And many highly talented people may experience self-limiting traits like perfectionism, or anxiety and other mood disorders, which can be managed better with the help of a psychotherapist.

Making sense of our intensities

But counseling is not just about dealing with disorder.

Educational consultant Annemarie Roeper, Ed.D. notes “Gifted people see life in the most brilliant colors and are capable of the greatest joy and the greatest desperation. They try to build all this into a functioning Self….

“Making sense of themselves and feeling fulfilled are often the forces that lead toward seeking counseling.”

Continued in article Learning to befriend our demons.
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gifted talented characteristics, gifted adults, psychology of giftedness, counseling for high ability

“Psychologists believe that a number of famous creative luminaries, including Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson and Isaac Newton, had schizotypal personalities.”

That quote comes from the ScienceDaily article Odd Behavior And Creativity May Go Hand-in-hand, which explains, “Often viewed as a hindrance, having a quirky or socially awkward approach to life may be the key to becoming a great artist, composer or inventor.

“New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities – people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic – offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.”

This research is also described in the book A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection, by Clifford A. Pickover.

Also see more articles on mental health and neuroscience.
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schizotypal creativity, eccentrics, gifted books, creative personality type

In his article Is There A Little Rain Man In Each Of Us?, Darold Treffert, MD asks if it is possible “to tap and use those still existent, but less frequently used, capacities and circuits, with some of their savant-like characteristics, in those of us more wedded to left brain capacity and higher level memory?”

He is convinced there is that possibility, and cites several examples of “acquired savants” – “previously non-disabled persons who after some injury or disease begin to demonstrate some, until then, dormant savant characteristics and capacities.

In one case “musical genius appeared at age 3 following meningitis.”

Another person showed “behavioral traits and abilities that emerged at age 9 following a bullet wound to the left hemisphere, leaving him paralyzed on the right side, mute and deaf but with some special mechanical abilities and other savant skills.

And in another case, “Alonzo’s sculpting talent emerged following a head injury as a young child.”

In an interview, Dr. Treffert noted that he defines three levels of the syndrome, including “talented savants…people whose skills are also conspicuous, but conspicuous against not only people with disabilities but even within their non-disabled peer group. Generally, they are more highly honed into one particular skill, such as music or art, for example.”

And a third level, “prodigious savants. These are people whose skills are so spectacular that, if they were not disabled, they would be at a genius level.”

From article: Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: Defining Autism, Savantism, and Genius, by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman

The image is from Dr. Treffert’s book Extraordinary People : Understanding Savant Syndrome.

See more articles related to Neuroscience.

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Darold Treffert, acquired savants, autistic savants, exceptional abilities, dormant savant characteristics, savant book, gifted adult books, genius brain

“Much madness is divinest sense”
Emily Dickinson

[Photo: Tom Hulce as Mozart in Amadeus (1984)]

A new look at Tourette’s

What is labeled mental disorder may really be an asset.

In her article “Wild Child,” Joanne Barrie Lynn, whose son has been diagnosed with Tourette’s and autism, notes that some researchers “believe there is evidence Mozart was a classic example of someone with Tourette ‘personality.’

She adds, “Touretters will sometimes incorporate their predilection for obsession and compulsion into their life success path.”

[More quotes on page: learning differences 2]

She is co-author with her husband George of the book Genius! Nurturing the Spirit of the Wild, Odd, and Oppositional Child. A major concept of theirs is that children can be “Attention Different” – rather than having a disorder or deficit. In their experience, say the authors, “These tendencies are the source of their brilliance, and their most problematic behavior.”

Bipolar – living more deeply

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison,MD., has commented about experiencing manic-depressive illness [bipolar disorder] as something positive:

“I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters.”

[More on page: depression 4]

Asperger

The book Genius! also notes, “Autistic writer Temple Grandin suggests that people with Asperger Syndrome have a kind of creativity suited to their tendency to think in pictures. “They are not good at following conventional rules to get to their results, but are powerfully visionary and will get new ideas as feeling-images.

Grandin “profiles Albert Einstein as someone with Asperger, recounting that he developed the theory of relativity from a vision he saw while pondering the relationship between mass and energy.”

[More quotes on the page learning differences]

Misdiagnosis

Professor Kathleen Noble, PhD, points out in our interview that “Gifted people are by no means disorder-free. We know there is a strong correlation between creativity and depression; creativity and mania…”

But giftedness and exceptional ability can often lead to misdiagnosis as psychological disorder – as noted in the book Misdiagnosis And Dual Diagnoses – “Many of our brightest, most creative, most independent thinking children and adults are being incorrectly diagnosed as having behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders.

“They are then given medication and/or counseling to change their way of being so that they will be more acceptable within the school, the family, or the neighborhood, or so that they will be more content with themselves and their situation.”

See related article: Mis-Diagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children: Gifted and LD, ADHD, OCD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder – By James T. Webb, Ph.D.

[See more on Dysfunction / disorder]

Neurotics: a mine of social treasure

Psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski commented in an interview, “Almost 97 percent of the highly creative suffer from different kinds of overexcitabilities.. and psychoneuroses. So, neurotics are a mine of social treasure. If their emotionality, talents, interests, and sensitivity were discovered at an early age, society and science would profit.”

[More on the page Dabrowski / advanced development
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gifted books, psychotherapy for gifted, creativity and madness, misdiagnosis of gifted adults