Embracing the Whole Gifted Self

by Patricia Gatto-Walden

Many gifted people cultivate and appreciate their extraordinary intellect, but Dr. Patricia Gatto-Walden uses her 30 years of clinical experience to explore giftedness through the perspective of all the domains of a person: intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, and social. Only by acknowledging, understanding, and nurturing all the domains can gifted individuals embrace their whole gifted selves.

It is Gatto-Walden's belief that home life, education, and counseling of the gifted must attend to the integration and enhancement of the mind, heart, body, spirit, and social self in order to attain contentment and balance in everyday life. This book encapsulates her holistic approach to understanding the problems experienced by highly gifted children and adults. She covers overexcitability, perfectionism, and asynchrony, with many examples of those she has helped.

Genres: Self Help

113 pages, Unknown Binding

Published July 1, 2016

Reviews

[David A Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowledge brings security

[Sepideh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was filled out with anecdote after anecdote from the author's experience with her own patients, but the people in the anecdotes are not particularly vivid so it gets boring quickly. There were many quotes in one of the early chapters about what young gifted people think that being gifted means, and this was not particularly informative.

I learned to appreciate that highly, extremely, and profoundly gifted are terms that quantify giftedness, and they are usually defined by some IQ level. This was the only way that I could tell some of the people in the anecdotes apart.

In addition to reading about giftedness, I am reading about equity lately, and I longed for some marginally and possibly gifted people in this book struggling with some of the same problems that seemed fairly ordinary in some cases. For example, I think a lot of people worry about making friends in college.

I really did enjoy the author's chapter on perfectionism because until now, I had not seen someone tie procrastination to perfectionism the way she did. I also liked the part when she discussed love and sexuality of gifted people in Chapter 8, Finding Belonging.

[Joelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biggest lessons learned:
- Gifted people often embrace the intellectual aspect of themselves but there is also the social, physical, emotional and spiritual aspects that must be considered and taken care of.
- The book talked about how it can be hard to find true peers. Instead, it is common to have friends for different activities or aspects of your life
- Your unique experience (and sometimes intensities) are normal among gifted people.
- Emotional overexcitability is common amping gifted people which involves experiencing a profound depth and complexity of emotions that drives personal growth, creativity, and a deep-seated desire to make the world better but can also be intense.

[Jennifer Lieberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be provided to all parents of identified gifted students. So much important information to help navigate understanding your child’s mind.

[Lyssa Smith]

If I'm reading a book for PD, I'm tracking it.