Give a copy to your teenage children! | The Gifted Adult: A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday...

Hope for those who just don't fit in... | The Gifted Adult: A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday Genius(tm) | Mary-Elaine Jacobsen

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	• The Gifted Adult: A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday Genius(tm) Mary-Elaine Jacobsen Ballantine Books, 2000 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not a manual

I agree with the other reviews in that this book is an eye opener if you are not already aware of the 'new' research into giftedness. I would like to make two comments though.
First, as one reviewer puts it, the book is lavish on the description of the gifted' characteristics and the difficulties that they encounter in their lives, but is lacking in now-what-do-I do. This is not exactly true. There are many pieces of advice that the author gives on how you can manage those traits that make it so difficult to fit in. However, it takes time for what you've read to sink in. For example, suppose that your social life has not been that great lately and you start feeling depressed. Looking back in time at similar situations, you'd probably decide that you need to make more friends or even find a partner. However, that may not really be the case. It could be that, as the author has so written, you have not been entertaining that necessity of the gifted to have a continual indulging in some kind of interest or passion. As the author puts it, the gifted have `multiple interests' and must always be involved in some kind of pursuit or another. Whenever you feel the blues, turn to the book, look hard and you'd probably find what you're looking for. Most likely, the advice contained in the book can be condensed to fit on just one page; but every single advice is priceless if you take a pause and give it the consideration and time of thought that it needs in order to be effective and long-lasting. The problem is that the book can never substitute for therapy and trying to use it as a manual or workbook is just extremely hard work as is the case with any book anyway. You'd have to be a professional yourself.
My second comment is that I find interesting analogies between the Lion sign of western astrology, the Dragon sign of Chinese astrology and the gifted' description. I'd say that these characteristics have been observed throughout the ages and there's nothing really new under the sun except that these traits are now being studied using the 'modern' tools of human psychology.
Last, I'd like to say that since it feels very awkward to call yourself gifted, how about `smd' , sensitivity more developed, since the term `hsp' has already been coined. I'd say that the gifted are most different from others in their sensitivity. Like the French say, these people have `une sensibilité à fleur de peau'. To be a `smd' is a way of life and, alas, a constant struggle.

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Give a copy to your teenage children!

Read this book as soon as possible. It is so jam filled (malaprop intended) with wisdom and knowledge and so well written with passion and power. Give a copy to each of your teenage children, nieces and nephews! They need this stuff at as young an age as possible.

And once you've read it, you must read Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement which gets down to the nitty gritty of breaking the bad habits that gifted people edge into because of their own gifted pride.

Hope for those who just don't fit in...

I loved this book. It's not just kids who can have the odd, creative, surprising characteristics of 'gifted'...What do we think Gifted Kids grow up into? Normal adults? Not by a longshot!

Do you ever feel like an outsider, wondering 'Why don't I see the world the way my peers do?' This book may help you figure out something about yourself. Even if you weren't diagnosed as gifted (Yeah..it could also be called 'Cursed'), your current disconnect with other people may be the product of a quirky "gifted" mind. If you're married to one of these personalities, this book can help you understand very frustrating traits in a new way.

My biggest issue with this book, though, is the term 'Gifted'. The author even addresses this - it carries a connotation of a value judgement, and honestly, when the book outlines the social difficulties and rejections of gifted adults by other personality types, "Cursed" is just as valid a label. There's nothing better about being Gifted...they're just different. A lovely difference, when harnessed correctly and when a gifted finds their "flock", but I hesitate to stray from an egalitarian viewpoint on varying human personality types.

My second biggest issue is that although the need to connect with other Gifteds is identified, it doesn't give much of a blueprint for Gifteds to find their own kind in the world. Mensa was the only group mentioned that I could see, and that group only applies to a very small subset of the personality types the book. Because the term 'gifted' is greatly disliked by some gifteds, they're not likely to rally around it to find each other.

But, this book clearly identifies a set of traits found in certain people, and gives them a name, along with a possible set of approaches to life for coping with this particular way of being. For that, it shines.

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Great book to embrace your "everyday genius"

"Of course you're different. You're intense, complex, and driven because you're gifted." ~ Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, Psy.D. from "The Gifted Adult"

"The Gifted Adult." This may be a book that you missed despite the fact that it is read by many people all over the world. I still can't remember how I discovered it but I'm thrilled I did. And, I think you're going to love it.

If you're even reading this review, odds are you're one of the millions of "Everyday Geniuses®" out there (she counts 20 million in the US alone) looking to most fully and authentically give their gifts to the world... but, unfortunately, too often feeling a sense of purpose that is not quite being fulfilled.

That sound vaguely familiar? If so, I HIGHLY recommend the book. It was a life changer when I first read it several years ago and it's been refreshing to re-read it after quite a bit of growth--reflecting on the seeds planted by the book that have now taken firm root in my life.

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Interesting alternative view of giftedness

I have just gone through one fifth of the book so far, but I have been very surprised about how well the author describes personality traits of gifted individuals. Taking a quick look at other chapters it seemed to offer very interesting, deep and detailed looks at every relevant aspect of life, the problems it poses to gifted individuals and ways to confront it.

Do not expect a scientific study, but rather a work created wholeheartedly out of intuition by somebody directly affected by the issue who intends to teach those blessed/doomed by giftedness why and how they are the way they are, and how to be happy and proud by being themselves and making the best out of their traits.

All together an extremely interesting workpiece for those interested in or affected by giftedness.

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Are you relentlessly curious and creative, always willing to rock the boat in order to get things done . . . extremely energetic and focused, yet constantly switching gears . . . intensely sensitive, able to intuit subtly charged situations and decipher others' feeling? If these traits sound familiar, then you may be an Everyday Genius--an ordinary person of unusual vision who breaks the mold and isn't afraid to push progress forward. . . .

As thought-provoking as Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, psychologist Mary-Elaine Jacobsen's Gifted Adults draws on a wide range of groundbreaking research and her own clinical experience to show America's twenty million gifted adults how to identify and free their extraordinary potential. Gifted Adults presents the first practical tool for rating your Evolutionary Intelligence Quotient through an in-depth personality-type profile. Demystifying what it means to be a gifted adult, this book offers practical guidance for eliminating self-sabotage and underachievement, helping Everyday Geniuses and those who know, love, and work with them to understand and support the exceptional gifts inherent in these unique personality traits.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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