Intelligent people and counsellors
When happens when highly intelligent people and counsellors meet? As well as the good stuff, there are a few common problems that can crop up.
Let’s take a look at what often happens.
You’ve noticed that you have a problem. Mental health, emotional health. You’ve reached out for support through a difficult time. First of all: well done! It takes a huge amount of courage to admit that things are going pear-shaped, and even more to reach out and seek help.
So, you’re seeing a counsellor or therapist, and you’re telling them all about what’s going on. They’re asking you good questions – questions that challenge you, questions that help you see your situation better, questions that open up options to you that weren’t even visible before.
And somehow, you’re not making progress.
You’re telling the same stories. Describing things just as they are. Nothing seems to have changed, except perhaps you have some new names and labels for different parts of your experience.
You might be feeling frustrated with the process. Your counsellor might be frustrated too, and finding it hard to help you towards your goals. And there’s a nagging sense developing that you don’t feel they get you, or can help you beyond a certain point.
So what’s going on?
What happens between intelligent people and counsellors?
When we talk about or around our issues, we’re not connected to them. It’s all too easy – when you’re good with words and enjoy a good discussion – to treat a counselling session in the same spirit. You go in, you have a good chat, you come out with a few more ideas and words than you went in. But you’re not really getting the counselling you want and/or need.
You’re running in circles around the session, talking about this, that, or the other, but without making any contact – and thereby any progress – with the issues at hand.
It’s quite possible you’re intellectualising your emotions. You know what they are, what they’re called, where they’ve (probably) come from. But the feelings don’t change. The don’t release. They don’t resolve.
To do that, your counsellor/therapist can help you get in touch with your body, your felt sense experience, where your emotions actually live, to help you witness and release them. And to do that, your counsellor needs to help you get your intellect a) on board with the process, and b) out of the way, just enough, so your feelings can be seen, felt, and processed.
It’s also possible your thoughts are so rich and detailed, especially when you’re gifted, that your counsellor can’t get to where you’re at. As a very loose rule of thumb, people tend to get on most easily with those who are within +/- 15 IQ points. (Yes, there are problems with IQ scores… I’m using them here as a rough guide to giftedness levels, not absolutes.) Your complexity may be greater than they can handle.
You probably use your intellect as a splendid defence. You can argue, divert, distract, or employ any of the wonderful tactics your brain has developed through the years to keep people – and yourself – away from your feelings. You can hold yourself and your support person in intellect-driven discussion. In general terms, this is no bad thing in itself – but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and in this kind of situation, staying away from your feelings is what keeps them persisting and bothering you.
We’re talking mismatch, here, not a lack of professionalism or skill. A non-gifted counsellor may be excellent with non-gifted clients. Non-gifted counsellors can definitely help gifted clients along their journeys. But when you need validation, witnessing, understanding, and help managing your gifted (and possibly twice-exceptional) traits, a non-gifted counsellor may simply be out of their depth.
It may be that your sensitivity and intensity seem abnormal to your counsellor, and they try to encourage you to be less sensitive, be less intense about everything. But to do so is to pathologise your innate qualities. What’s normal sensitivity and intensity to you – and other gifted folk – seems off the scale and inappropriate to non-gifted people.
What gifted folk often need in counselling and therapy is something that meets and matches your giftedness enough, so that all of you can become present: your giftedness, your intensity, your sensitivity, your perplexity at yourself and how you experience the world, your creativity, your intellectual whizziness, and a method or two to help you access your emotions in a way that neither overwhelms you or causes you to intellectualise away from your feelings.
What next?
1. Do nothing
You might be satisfied with how things are at the moment. Good. Or you may be a bit uncomfortable, but not yet uncomfortable *enough* to want to initiate any changes. Also good. You’ll do things when you’re read, if you’re ready. And maybe when you’re not (seeing how life has a habit of forcing our hand sometimes).
2. Do It Yourself
You have a few options here.
- Open up a discussion about this with your counsellor. You may be able to find a different way of relating to one another that helps you connect with yourself and your stuff, and thereby find some solutions.
- Find a different counsellor. Don’t bunny hop from one counsellor to another, but find one who really helps you to connect with yourself. One who gets what it is to be highly intelligent/gifted. One who helps you feel your feelings. One who challenges you if you’re merely telling stories like you’re entertaining your mates down the pub on a Friday night. One with whom you feel you’re making progress.
- Give the talking a rest and find a bodywork practitioner. Someone who does massage or acupuncture, shiatsu or cranio-sacral therapy. Someone who does energy work. Someone who can bypass your head (your thoughts, your storytelling) and help you communicate directly with your body which is, after all, where all your emotional experiences are.
- Give up, carry on with business as usual until you hit another, potentially more serious problem down the road. I don’t really recommend this option, actually. I put it here to prompt you to think “oh shit, I’d better do one of the other things rather than risk a bigger problem later.” Did it work?
The big takeaway from this is: you’re not alone. Loads of people do this. Loads of people get stuck in their heads, unable to connect with their feelings, and it’s a hard – but not impossible – habit to break.
3. Do It With Someone
You can find yourself a support professional who specialises in working with highly intelligent/gifted people. That could be me.
If you want to hang around in my world for a while before diving in, I’d suggest joining my mailing list for sporadic articles and insights into giftedness.