Different By Design-DCAGT-March-2017

©2016 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC
www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com
Different
By Design!
by
Sharon M. Barnes, MSSW, LCSW
“How to Move
from Feeling
Defective to
Being
Distinctive!”
LifeCraft
Helping CASIGYs™ Craft a Life You Love to Live!

©2017 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW PLLC -
Sharon M. BarnesTherapist For Sensitive and
Gifted
MSSW – Masters of Science in Social Work, SDSU
LCSW – Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Colorado
USA
Local Counseling/Psychotherapy
Online Distance Consultation
Presentations, PlayShops & Retreats
Professional DevelopmentJungian-oriented depth work to:
 Release your Creativity
 Heal your Past
 Transform your Pain
 Become Fully Alive
 Find & Fulfill your True Purpose

Thank You to
Douglas County
Association for Gifted and
Talented

Different by Design“How to Move from Feeling Defective to Being Distinctive”
Fiction:
Giftedness = (unfair) advantage
2E or 2X = “Something’s WRONG with
me”
Truth:
Gifted or 2E/2X ≠ Defective
Gifted or 2E/2X = Different by Design

What’s DIFFERENT
about Being Gifted?
Creative, Curious, Complex
Acutely Aware
Super- Sensitive
Intense, maybe Introverted
Gifted
You? Someone You know?
= CASIGY™

Creativity
 Creativity is not necessarily artistic;
it has many faces:
 Do you have many ideas or see possibilities
everywhere?
 Do you think outside the box?
 Is originality or uniqueness important to you?
 Do you invent things, or have ideas to do so?
 Does your life feel like a desert if you're not using
& expressing your creativity?
 Do you have many interests?
 Do you sometimes feel driven by your creativity?

Complexity
 Do you have a rich inner life?
 Do you think quickly, often on several tracks at
once?
 Do your own inner needs often conflict with each
other?
 Do you often see through the over-simplicity of
other peoples’ thought processes?
 Are you aware of implications of things that others
often miss?
 Can you also sometimes over-complicate things?

Acute Awareness
 Awareness of, or noticing things that other
people miss
 Sights
 Sounds
 Sensations
 Awareness of implications or ramifications
of events or situations that other people
miss
 Quickly or easily over-burdened with
sensory overload or CNS over-stimulation,
especially those who are introverts

Super-Sensitivity
 Do you notice many things that others don't?
 Are you sensitive to light, sound, touch, textures?
 Do you have heightened senses:
sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing?
 Are you sometimes emotionally sensitive, too?
 Are you highly empathic or compassionate
(unless you're off balance internally)?
 Do you feel deeply the wounds of injustice and
human suffering—yours or others'?
 Do others sometimes tell you that you're TOO
sensitive?
 AKA Over-Excitability: psychomotor, sensual,
imaginational, intellectual and emotional
(Dabrowski)

Intensity Do you feel things more deeply than
most?
 Are you deeply moved by music, art,
nature?
 Does your body react strongly to
everything?
 Do others tell you often that you over-
react?
 Do you need a high level of stimulation?
 Do you also get over-stimulated easily?
 Does it seem that you have only two
gears –
off and high speed ahead?

Introversion
 Do you need frequent solitude?
 Do people mistakenly think you’re shy?
 Do you have a few deep friendships?
 Do you do more listening than talking?
 Do you often have 'delayed intelligence'?
 Do your bests ideas come when you're alone?
 Do you get energized by solitary pursuits?
 Do you become deeply humiliated when you’ve
made a mistake in public?
 Do you often get drained & exhausted by being
around people & need solitude to recharge?

Giftedness
 Are you a complex person?
 Do you think quickly, often on several tracks at once?
 Do you have a well developed but unusual sense of humor?
 Do you set very high standards for yourself?
 Do you have a pervasive, persistent curiosity?
 Do you have a high level of energy?
 Do you have a strong 'need to know' that's not easily satisfied?
 Are honesty, integrity, authenticity very important to you-more
so than many people?
 Dr. Annemarie Roeper: “Giftedness is a greater awareness, a
greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and
transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional
experience.”

©2015 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC ∙ www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com
Sensational Kids by Lucy Jane Miller, PhD,
OTR
CNS responses in children with Sensory Processing
Disorder:
o 5 – 10 times AS MUCH response
o 5-10 times AS FAST a response
No SPD? Consider this . . . . .
What if you have 2-3 times AS MUCH a CNS response
or 2-3 times AS FAST a CNS response as
Neurotypicals?

©2015 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC ∙
What’s it liketo be
Gifted and
DIFFERENT?

I’m an Alien

www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com©2016 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW, PLLC.
Why
can’t I
get my
life
together?
I’m such
an IDIOT!

I wish I had
never been
born
I don’t
want to
live

HERE’S THE BIG PICTURE:
A Great Tragedy
What’s
WRONG
with ME?
o Under –Achievement
o Alienation
o Dumbing down
o Copping out
o Dropping out
o Wasted intelligence
o Wasted talent
o Wasted lives

… failure to help the gifted [person]
reach his potential is a societal
tragedy, the extent of which is
difficult to measure but what is
surely great.
How can we measure the sonata
unwritten, the curative drug
undiscovered, the absence of
political insight?
They are the difference between
what we are and what we could be
as a society.
James J. Gallagher

A Great Tragedy
o Alienation
o Dumbing down
o Copping out
o Dropping out
o Wasted talent
o Wasted lives
o Suicides of Gifted & Talented
People

A Great Tragedy
o Alienation
o Dumbing down
o Copping out
o Dropping out
o Wasted talent
o Wasted lives
o Suicides of Gifted & Talented
People
o School Shootings ← GT Students

MisFits Come in Many Forms
Good Gifts Gone Bad
Bullying
Dumbing Down
Wasted Potential
Copping out, Dropping out
Teen Suicide
Deviance
Violence
Columbine HS Shooting
Aurora Theatre Shooting
Lex Luthor
Under it all: A Need to Belong

Magical MisFits
©2015 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC ?

Inner Dissonance → ↑Vulnerability →
o Different Inferior
o Different Inadequate
o Different Defective
o Different MisFit
o Social isolation
o Alienation
.
I feel like an
alien from
another planet
I feel more
disabled
than gifted

CASIGYs’
Mascots
Like their famous
uncle,
*Different*
o ridiculed
o excluded
o shunned
o shamed
o ostracized
o banished into©2016 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW, PLLC. www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com
Siggy
Cas
i

Meet Casi & Siggy You may know of their famous uncle
 You haven’t met them … or their cousins
(yet)
 These things often run in families
 CASIGYs often feel isolated
 There’s really many of us . . . You’re not
alone
Siggy
Casi
Meg
Reggi
e

because of . . .

LATER …
They returned from exile
and saved the day . . .
for the (global) community

Also
because of . .
.

www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com©2015 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC ∙ www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com
What’s
YOURS?

CASIGY Cycle of Discouragement
The
Hero’s &
Heroine’s
Journey

How to Identify
CASIGY™ Discouragement
 SAD CASIGY™s
Super-sensitivity
Anxiety
Depression
 CAISGY Underachievement
 ↓ or ↑ sleep
 ↓ or ↑ appetite
 Exaggerated reactions of any kind

SPD, GT & 2E Differences are NOT
Proof that Something is WRONG!
With you!
INSTEAD, they are a
CALL to the
Hero’s/Heroine’s Journey;
an invitation to
o Adventure
o Higher & Deeper
Perssonal Development
o Consciousness
o Wholeness

Dabrowski’s Theory of
Positive Disintegration
o Emotions influence personality development
o Intelligence is not a sufficient condition for human
development
o Experience of negative emotions is essential for
advanced psychological development.
o Therefore the goal of therapy is not to eliminate negative
emotions
o When individuals are on the path of development,
negative emotions are essential companions
o Negative emotions may break apart lower levels of
development and thus prepare us for higher levels of
development
o Therefore having negative emotions may be a
harbinger of further development

Jung’s Depth Psychology:
 Most people can stay undeveloped psychically
with no particularly negative consequences for
themselves
 They are unconscious and are perfectly happy
being unconscious.
 They give lots of other people trouble and pain,
but they are not pained because of their
unconsciousness.
 Many (especially CASIGYs) DO have a great
NEED to develop to a deeper, higher, broader
level.
 They develop symptoms (neuroses) that haunt
them unless and until they become more and
more conscious and more developed
psychologically.
 Like those who MUST explore new physical
territory (California or BUST), they MUST
individuate.
 Tragically, they most often misinterpret the
meaning of their symptoms to mean something
is wrong with them. .
 They need to understand that instead, their
symptoms are signs of an INVITATION ,WITH AN
IMPERATIVE, TO GROW & DEVELOP FURTHER.

CASIGYs ─
You’re NOT
Defective;
You’re
Different …
by Design!

More often
than not, we
REFUSE the
invitation!

The Mythical Hero’s &
Heroine’s Journey

Different By Design!
Who Am I?

The Cycle of Recovery:
4Antidotes
to CASIGY™
Discouragement

Antidotes
• 2• 3
• 1• 4
Creative
Coping

Creative Coping:
CASIGYs™ Tool Box:
Our TOP, #1 Tool:
©2015 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com
www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com/Relax
ation-Breathing-Excercises/

Antidotes to CASIGY™ Discouragement
Antidote #2: Creative Healing
• 2• 3
• 1• 4
Creative
Coping
Creative
Healing

Creative Healing
Creative Healing is needed when
o Hurts or emotional wounds are present
o Emotions are complex, conflicting and
changing, like cross currents, rip tides, &
undertows in ocean waves
Creative Healing involves Composting
 Nature’s original recycling
 Transforms the energy
 Manure becomes fertilizer

Antidotes to CASIGY™ Discouragement
Antidote #3: Creative Transformation
• 2• 3
• 1• 4
Creative
Coping
Creative
Healing
Creative
Transfor-
mation

Creative Transformation
o Creative Healing targets your inner
wounds-what’s happened to you & its
impact on you
o Creative Transformation targets your Self-
who you are
o Making things with our hands that
represent our emotions heals us
o Transforming the images and the tangible
material transforms us as well
My Life’s Gone Up in Smoke!

Creative Transformation
o Creative Healing targets your inner
wounds-what’s happened to you & its
impact on you
o Creative Transformation targets your Self-
who you are
o Making things with our hands that
represent our emotions heals us
o Transforming the images and the tangible
material transforms us as well
Nourish the Fire Within

4. Creative Contribution
• 2• 3
• 1• 4
Creative
Contri-
bution
Creative
Coping
Creative
Healing
Creative
Transfor-
mation

Creative
Contribution
 Transform your RED NOSE from a liability into an
asset
 find the Gift hidden inside your Red NOSE that
taps the depths of your CASIGY™ uniqueness
develops all your CASIGY™ abilities
fulfills your CASIGY™ mission
Makes You COME ALIVE when you do it
answers the call of your Destiny
meets a need in those around you

Creative
Contribution Use your RED NOSE to “save the day”
 Have the courage to return from exile
 Have the heart to help (even) those who have hurt
you
 Have the resolve to keep going through the tough
times
 Have the love to fulfill your Destiny-to meet the
need that only you can meet
 Have the faith to follow the Still, Small Voice
 Have the creativity to be unconventional
 Have the authenticity to BE YOU!

Your Personal Pilgrimage
o Personal = Universal
o RED NOSE = Invitation
o Invitation to
o Creative Awareness
o Creative Coping
o Creative Healing
o Creative Transformation
o Creative Contribution
o What Invitation is here,
now?
o How can YOU accept the
invitation?

Different By Design-DCAGT-March-2017

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