Living with Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults

It is more like a textbook for counselors than a book for someone seeking guidance. It provides very detailed explanations of overexcitabilities that you might recognize yourself in. It explains clearly how those could be beneficial. But it is weak on explaining how to live with overexcitabilities in any practical manner. It is more designed to help counselors or some other group make sense or be more accepting of what they are seeing than it is offering advice to an individual struggling themselves or dealing with a child who struggles. As a textbook, it's very good. As a guide, it's okay, but you'll have to work hard and make a lot of connections and conclusions on your own.

I had a very hard time with this book and have incredibly mixed feelings. I guess an outline would be best?1. First of all, there was little new in here about OEs that you can’t find online at this point. If you’re looking to understand those from an adult perspective, I’d look elsewhere. Heck, I’ve found more enlightening information through Quora on the topic. This book just has a ton of basic description.2. Much of this book covers the theory of positive disintegration, which you might find yourself accepting or completely disagreeing with. The theory rests on the concept of the “lower” selfish self and the “higher” empathetic self and the personal struggle towards the “higher” self. I personally view this as a false dichotomy. Self-interest and empathy are not mutually exclusive, but that’s a 200 page dissertation I’ll leave for elsewhere.3. Much of this book is based on chasing the ideal of total inner peace, magnanimous civic mindedness and eventual ego death. It places Gandhi, Jesus and the Peace Pilgrim as examples of this state. For a book that tells you repeatedly to find your own values, I find that to be a very narrow and mostly unattainable set of values.4. While we’re on the topic of Jesus, if you’ve long since left religion behind, all the religion/spiritual talk can leave you feeling deeply uncomfortable.5. Most of the book describes these successful, eminent people in their fields. Then here and there I’d see myself represented: troubled isolationists who have emotionally or totally dropped out of society. As someone who has been struggling, overall, it made it look like you’re a piano virtuoso or on drugs. There is one story of a man who learned to be content in life and get meaning from family relationships, but little attention is paid to how. And that story feels too little too late.6. If you’re deeply introverted or have social struggles, too much of this book comes across as being hard to relate to. It talks a lot about challenging jobs, volunteer work, parenting and art careers as providing meaning and purpose. If you find those activities draining or impossible because of the people contact element, it can potentially fuel worse feelings of inferiority/inadequacy.I didn’t quite know how to rate this one, so I went with a middle three stars. They should change the title from “Living with Intensity” to “Describing Intensity.”Overall, if you’re not a people person and/or more of a rational type, there’s little to relate to here. If you secretly wish you were Mother Teresa, dive right in.

Ask any teacher, they will tell you about fragile ego of the top students, the gifted students and the talented students. It is NOT in each and every case, but this is something that is frequently observed.The people who are above average in many ways often are also above average on the emotional sensitivity scale.It is a good read to those who are new to the concept as this book may help you in whatever situation you are, if you are a parent of a gifted child, this will help you to understand them better, if you are that gifted child you can use this book to understand yourself better. If you are an adult who struggled with whathe she has been labeled as being "oversensitive" this book will help you to understand why and also will help you to navigate the life ahead.While not every gifted and talented person is on the Autism Spectrum (previously known as Asperger) quite few are, so this might be a good start to look there for further answers to better understand yourself if you happen to be one and never knew it as there is certain link there as well.I have work with many parents of gifted children and this book is one of the most popular titles that they reach for to better understand their kids and how to relate to them.I highly recommend it!

Many of the other reviews suggest reading this if you or your child seems to be challenging, and gifted, but I think we should expand our thinking to how we interact with all the people we meet and with which we come into contact. This book is revolutionary for gifted people because it explains what we can't. I am one of those who has a hard time with words, but I am extremely sensitive and active and have big ideas. When I was a youth I heard a lot of the criticisms in the book "stop being such a picky eater" "hurry up and make a decision, your concerns don't matter" "you are asking too many questions" "settle down" etc etc etc. As a result, I realize now that I pick other gifted people to be around, and I realize how lucky I was to have a huge set of gifted people to be friends with growing up. As a result of reading this book I understand myself, and I understand a LOT better what a lot of my friends are going through and have gone through in life. I have a huge list of people to send this book to now.Friends aside - what made me look at this book to beging with? My kids. My son is difficult even for me and my husband (who also has a set of "overexcitabilities"). Our son is so much of what the book is about. I feel so empowered now and excited to be with him and nuture his abilities, and I feel like I do have tools to help me to help him learn to control his behaviors when he needs to in order to be successful in the world. This book is a lifesaver.This book is a lifesaver, I repeat. I think if more people understood this information we may also have a lot more supportive people that could have helped some of these kids that are also resorting to violence. I am concerned that some gifted people may be turning to violence in a really depressive state because they have been stiffled, ashamed, ridiculed, abused, and UNHEARD for so long and can't communicate with anyone around them and they are being diagnosed and medicated instead of accepted and heard. Maybe this book can be a part of our new plan to help curb the violence?

The book gives a readable account of Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration, overexcitabilities, giftedness and the relationship between them. This is very useful in understanding the inner emotional and imaginational world of the gifted. This can be considered to come "straight from the horse's mouth" as one of the authors worked with Dabrowski himself.

Great book to understand Dabrowski's theories. Possibly one of the best ones to start learning about giftedness

good examples of OE gives a better understanding of the gifted and the way forward for many who live with OE

Describe a la perfección numerosas situaciones que se viven personas especialmente dotadas y con altos niveles de excitabilidad, proporcionando claves para comprender mejor y para actuar en consecuencia. A pesar de ser un texto bastante técnico, resulta también útil para padres o personas no especialistas en la materia.

Si quieres saber más sobre las sobrexcitabilidades y sobre cómo funcionan las personas superdotadas este libro está muy bien