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March 2, 2023 | Vol. 1 Issue 2 | | |
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President's Message
by Dr. Chris Wells
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Welcome back to another month of Dąbrowski Center activities!
In February, my personal priorities were making progress with my book, as well as adding more material to the Dąbrowski Center website. When the website was created last fall, I had very little time and bandwidth to add content, but I’ve finally started catching up. We’ve got podcast transcripts available for the first ten episodes (plus #16) on our website, and we’re committed to adding as many helpful resources as possible.
I’ve started sharing some of the documents I created when I was first learning the theory. It occurred to me that I might help other people understand the theory by making the documents from my 2017 literature review available. It was an enormous project that I worked on from late 2016 through NAGC in November 2017, and it involved a variety of activities. I was reading everything I could get my hands on from both Dąbrowski and Piechowski, examining the overexcitability research from gifted education, and coding the data Dąbrowski and his research team collected and published in Part 2 of the 1996 book, Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions. Eventually, I will get it all uploaded to the website, but I’ve started by sharing some of my favorite retrieval documents, which Emma has renamed “Quote Collages.”
I’m especially pleased with how the Piechowski Archive is shaping up. We’ve managed to get most of Michael’s work uploaded and shared, and this week, we included one of his presentations from the 1999 Hollingworth Conference. Keep an eye on these pages for more work to be included in the coming months.
The photo I’ve included here with Michael at Yunasa West 2021 is on the archive page because it’s one of my favorites. In February, I had the opportunity to travel to Pasadena, California to participate in the Yunasa planning meeting for the first time. I’m happy to announce that I’ll be returning to work with Michael and the rest of the Yunasa team this summer. I’ll be back in the Facilitator role at Yunasa West, and I’ll be at Yunasa East for the first time. Yunasa is a camp for gifted children run by the Institute for Educational Advancement.
Here’s a description of camp from the IEA website:
"Designed and led by eminent experts in the field of gifted youth, Yunasa embraces gifted children for who they are, helping them understand and work with the unique joys and challenges that gifted children face... Yunasa supports the whole gifted child, encouraging growth and support of campers intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically."
Here are the dates and locations for camp this year:
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Yunasa West in Colorado (Ages 10-15): June 10 – 17, 2023
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Yunasa East in Michigan (Ages 10-14): July 22 – July 29, 2023
The application deadline is March 17, 2023, so please check it out if you have children in these age ranges!
The final news that I want to share this month is about the first annual Dabrowski Center Gathering, listed on Facebook. We’re going to get together the weekend of August 18-20, 2023, for a few planned in-person events in the Highlands Ranch/Lone Tree/Parker area of Colorado. We’d love for you to join us! We’ll have more information on this event next month.
Thank you for being a part of the Dąbrowski Center Community!
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Listen now (55 min) | In episode 29, Chris and Emma discussed The Ugly Duckling, the classic fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, from the perspectives of giftedness, neurodivergence, and positive disintegration. We discussed aspects of our personal journeys and the impact of discovering Dąbrowski's theory, and how these relate back to themes in the tale. | | |
Previous Episode
Tune in for Episode 28: "Positive Disintegration in Organizations."
In episode 28, Chris and Emma were joined by Kate Arms, JD, PCC, for a discussion on what positive disintegration looks like in organizations and workplaces. How are organizational dynamics similar to positive disintegration in individuals?
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When I first started my Adults With Overexcitabilities YouTube channel and my Tragic Gift website, it was with a simple mission—to make the theory of positive disintegration as accessible (and as easy to consume) as possible and to get the message of this wonderful theory to as many people as possible. I personally understand the power of the theory and what a difference it has made in my own life, and I wanted to share it with others.
The simplification of the theory seems to be going OK, but the real challenge is getting the message out there because many people who could benefit from the theory don’t know they can benefit from the theory.
The theory of positive disintegration can help people who are going through mental turmoil, having a dark night of the soul, questioning who they are, or perhaps are trying to grapple with their overexcitabilities. Problem is that, like me, until they find the theory, they may not know what they are experiencing. When I was searching for answers, I wasn’t looking under “positive disintegration” nor was I Googling “overexcitability” or “gifted education” (where the theory has largely been discussed). I was Googling things about mental health, and it was only by a sheer fluke that I found positive disintegration at all.
This is the crux of the issue—the theory currently isn’t sitting in all the spaces where it is desperately needed. People out there are struggling right now—today—who could really use the theory in their lives, but it’ll be a fluke if they find the theory. What can be done?
Well, the answer is relatively simple—we need to share. Share the theory as far and wide as possible. The brilliant thing is that you can help today:
- Share this newsletter.
- Share links to the Dabrowski Center on your social media.
- Talk about the theory in your corner of the world.
Every little bit helps. It might lead someone you know to the answers they are seeking.
In the meantime, if you are looking for easy and accessible resources, you can check out my website, Tragic Gift. It has been designed to help people (in particular, adults with overexcitabilities) start on their learning journey from the ground up. And if you have overexcitabilities, please join us in the Adults With Overexcitabilities Facebook group.
As the old saying goes: “sharing is caring.” When it comes to the theory of positive disintegration, sharing can quite literally make all the difference.
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More information to follow in next month's newsletter. | To access videos and transcripts from the 2022 Congress, click HERE. | |
There are a number of ways to get involved with the Center or to show your support:
Your donation will help fund services for transcription and administration, hosting and storage, website and social media management, conference registration fees and travel, future Dąbrowski Congress venues, keynote speakers' travel expenses and fees, startup costs, software, and recording equipment.
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The Dąbrowski Center is working to provide additional resources and services. Please help support our efforts by purchasing Positive Disintegration podcast merchandise. | | | Friends of the Center & Podcast |
SENG 2023 Annual Conference - Authentic Voices: Community & Belonging Registration | Coming up July 21-23, 2023 in Villanova, PA! | | | |
Be Greeted
Psychoneurotics!
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“Be greeted psychoneurotics!
For you see sensitivity in the insensitivity of the world,
uncertainty among the world's certainties.
For you often feel others as you feel yourselves.
For you feel the anxiety of the world, and
its bottomless narrowness and self-assurance.
For your phobia of washing your hands from the dirt
of the world,
for your fear of being locked in the world’s limitations.
for your fear of the absurdity of existence.
For your subtlety in not telling others what you see in them.
For your awkwardness in dealing with practical things, and
for your practicalness in dealing with unknown things,
for your transcendental realism and lack of everyday
realism,
for your exclusiveness and fear of losing close friends,
for your creativity and ecstasy,
for your maladjustment to that "which is" and
adjustment to that which "ought to be,"
for your great but unutilized abilities.
For the belated appreciation of the real value of your
greatness
which never allows the appreciation of the greatness
of those who will come after you.
For your being treated instead of treating others,
for your heavenly power being forever pushed down
by brutal force;
for that which is prescient, unsaid, infinite in you.
For the loneliness and strangeness of your ways.
Be greeted!”
— Dąbrowski, 1972
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Prophylactic Psychoneurosis, Standard
by Stacie Brown McCullough
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“If I were crazy, don’t you think I’d know it?!” These words from my late grandmother, whose logic I never imagined I’d debate, rebuked my mother’s attempt to rein in an ornate description of her dining room light fixture. What she had described as a chandelier was essentially a small mass of deer antlers and electric candlesticks (made or gifted to her by a dear someone, no doubt) that replaced a dangling, decades-old, lightbulb on a wire. What she had described as her socioeconomic status, likened to a millionaire, meant love- and land-rich; however, these luxuries of the good life, themselves, do not guarantee access to education or healthcare, or indoor plumbing, for that matter.
I recently came across the 1972 poem “Be greeted psychoneurotics!” by Kazimierz Dąbrowski (see side column above), and I could not help but pause to remember the beauty of my grandmother’s existence via select words of this poem. Her idealized descriptions of wealth were quite naturally inclusive of many connotations, even after only an eighth-grade education. To her, millionaire meant a comfortable, fulfilled life with small extravagances (like an actual light fixture in the dining room), and by god she was going to make that happen if she had to stretch most people’s standard definition of wealth. To me, though, neither comparison was necessarily a figment of the imagination, nor did they require a leap of faith to accept as essentially true. She was a millionaire with a chandelier in her 10’ ceiling dining room. Dust off your hats, y’all. That was that.
I grew up in awe of her natural curiosity and zest for life, her sense of wonder and excitement about each new idea she came across. I’ve always thought she was forever on to something just out of reach but no less real. A bit off, perhaps, but according to Dąbrowski, “We may even go so far as to affirm that in most cases the milder psychoneuroses, and these are by far the more numerous, comprise basic prophylactic elements which guard a person against sustaining serious mental illness” (Dabrowski, 1972)—a “form of positive maladjustment, to maintain our sanity" (Nicholson, 2023). In the very least, even if my mother was wrong about her, I would say my grandma had standard psychoneurosis down pat.
References:
Dąbrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness: Neuroses and psychoneuroses from the perspective of positive disintegration, Gryf Publications Ltd.
Nicholson, Emma. (2023). “Review of Psychoneurosis Is Not An Illness,” Dąbrowski Center.
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The mission of the Dąbrowski Center is to actively promote mental health through the application, exploration, research, and dissemination of the Theory of Positive Disintegration. We want to help alleviate suffering by reframing mental illness through the lens of positive disintegration. | |
We personally know how powerful Dąbrowski’s theory can be for understanding and supporting a wide range of human experiences. The Dąbrowski Center is our way to give back, and provide a mirror to other intense individuals who are looking for answers, and the people who work with and care for them. | |
Values are at the heart of Dąbrowski’s work, and at what we do at the Dąbrowski Center. Our values guide the quality of relationships we wish to have with the community, and each other, and how we want to bring our authenticity to life as an organization. | |
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