Clinical and Mental Health Issues in Counseling the Gifted Individual

Although there are a host of issues that can be addressed regarding the clinical and mental health of gifted individuals, this article focuses on the unique experiences and characteristics of gifted individuals in relation to four issues faced by counselors in schools and mental health professionals in clinical settings: (a) unhealthy perfectionism, (b) anxiety, (c) depression, and (d) suicidality. On the basis of research among gifted individuals, it is possible to highlight characteristics or experiences that may be important to treatment of these four conditions. By definition, gifted individuals are not normal on some metric, and this nonnormality can manifest in unexpected responses to others or from others. Unfortunately, there is little research that clearly delineates differences in the incidence of mental health issues between gifted and nongifted individuals (Martin, Bums, & Schonlau, 2010), in part because of a lack of consensus on a definition of giftedness. What research exists suggests that, in many ways, gifted individuals have no higher incidence of mental disorders than their peers, with the exception of creatively gifted individuals (Neihart, 2012). Academically or intellectually gifted individuals may be no more likely than their peers to experience mental health disorders, but when they do, the precipitating or impacting factors may be related to their nonnormality. Perhaps most important to understanding how these clinical and mental health issues should be approached with a gifted client is a recognition of the unique lived experience of these individuals. The Lived Experience of Gifted Individuals The exceptional abilities of gifted individuals contribute to different experiences, which may be academic, interpersonal, or intrapersonal. The lived experience--a term from phenomenological research used to describe "the world as we immediately experience it" (Van Manen, 1990, p. 9)--of gifted individuals can be dramatically different from that of their nongifted peers (Coleman, 2012; Coleman & Cross, 1988, 2000), perhaps because of their processing of the experience or because of the differential treatment by others. Some gifted students experience feelings of differentness from peers (T. L. Cross, Coleman, & Stewart, 1995; Robinson, 1996). T. L. Cross et al. (1995) found that gifted high school students who reported such feelings of differentness were more likely to respond truthfully about their exceptional abilities in a hypothetical scenario in which their abilities would be exposed to others. Whereas these gifted students allowed their differences to be known, other gifted adolescents would lie or divert the conversation to avoid exposure (T. L. Cross, Coleman, & Terhaar-Yonkers, 1991). Such modified behavior provides evidence of the stigma that accompanies giftedness (Coleman, 1985). Unlike other stigmatizing conditions, giftedness can be hidden, and gifted students sometimes feel the need to go underground in order to find acceptance. Especially in adolescence, such inauthenticity can present challenges to ego development. A counselor needs to recognize the challenges of the gifted individual's unique lived experience to fully understand the client's problem. Social Interaction Family relationships. Interactions with others make up an important part of one's lived experience. Family relationships may be affected differently for clients who have been identified as gifted and clients who have not. Families may experience upheaval with their child's gifted identification. For example, pursuit of an appropriate education may mean attendance in special programs (requiring transportation and expense) and sometimes even a physical move to be near a recommended program (Burney & Cross, 2006). Flaving a gifted child who is very different in ability from siblings or even parents may result in a stressful situation for the family (Hermann & Lawrence, 2012). …