Dabrowski : Existential Issues and Giftedness

Edvard Munch - Despair (1894)

Extract from :

Dabrowski’s Theory and Existential Depression in Gifted Children and Adults

Webb, J ; Ph.D.

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Existential Issues and Giftedness

It is well-known that many famous artists and musicians have experienced existential depression. Eminent persons who have suffered from this kind of depression include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, Henry James, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Isak Dinesen, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and Dag Hammarskjöld.

In fact, the famous 17th century gifted mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) fully captured the experience of existential awareness when he said, “When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and which know not me, I am afraid, and wonder to see myself here rather than

there; for there is no reason why I should be here rather than there, nor rather now than then” (Pascal, 1946).

Yalom (1980), who is perhaps the most widely read current Western writer on existential psychotherapy, describes four primary issues of existence (or "ultimate concerns") — death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Death is an inevitable occurrence. Freedom, in an existential sense, refers to the absence of external structure — that is, humans do not enter a world that is inherently structured. We must give the world a structure, which we ourselves create. Thus, we have social customs and traditions, education, religion, governments, laws, etc. Isolation recognizes that no matter how close we become to another person, we will never completely know that person and no one can fundamentally come to know us; a gap always remains, and we are therefore still alone. The fourth primary issue, meaninglessness, stems from the first three. If we must die, if in our freedom we have to arbitrarily construct our own world, and if each of us is ultimately alone, then what absolute meaning does life have ?

People are most often affected by existential issues as a result of their own experience of puzzlement from trying to understand themselves and the world, which then generates feelings of aloneness and existential depression. The people who worry over these issues are seldom those in the lower reaches of intelligence or even in the average range. In my experience, existential fretting, or for that matter rumination and existential depression are far more common among (though not exclusive to) more highly intelligent people — those who ponder, question, analyze, and reflect. This is not surprising since one must engage in substantial thought and reflection to even consider such notions. People who mindlessly engage in superficial day-to-day aspects of life — work, meals, home duties, and chores — do not tend to spend time thinking about these types of issues. Brighter individuals are usually more driven to search for universal rules or answers, and also to recognize injustices, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies.

Other characteristics of gifted children and adults also predispose them to existential distress. Because brighter people are able to envision the possibilities of how things might be, they tend to be idealists. However, they are simultaneously able to see that the world falls short of their ideals. Unfortunately, these visionaries also recognize that their ability to make changes in the world is very limited. Because they are intense, these gifted individuals — both children and adults — keenly feel the disappointment and frustration that occurs when their ideals are not reached. They notice duplicity, pretense, arbitrariness, insincerities, and absurdities in society and in the behaviors of those around them. They may question or challenge traditions, particularly those that seem meaningless or unfair.

They may ask, for example, “Why are there such inflexible sex or age role restrictions on people ? Is there any justifiable reason why men and women ‘should’ act a certain way ? Why do people engage in hypocritical behaviors in which they say one thing but then do the opposite ? People say they are concerned with the environment, but their behaviors show otherwise. Why do people say things they really do not mean at all ? They greet you with, ‘How are you?’ when they really don’t want you to tell them the details of how you are. Why are so many people so unthinking and uncaring in their dealings with others? And with our planet ? Are others really concerned with improving the world, or is it simply all about selfishness ? Why do people settle for mediocrity ? People seem fundamentally selfish and tribal. How much difference can one person make ? It all seems hopeless. The world is too far gone. Things get worse each day. As one person, I’ll never be able to make a difference.” These thoughts are common in gifted children and adults.

As early as first grade, some gifted children, particularly the more highly gifted ones, struggle with these types of existential issues and begin to feel estranged from their peers. When they try to share their existential thoughts and concerns with others, they are usually met with reactions ranging from puzzlement to hostility. The very fact of children raising such questions is a challenge to tradition and prompts others to withdraw from or reject them. The children soon discover that most other people do not share their concerns but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on fitting in with others' expectations. The result for these gifted youngsters is conflict, either within themselves or with those around them. But as George Bernard Shaw once said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

As they get older, gifted children may find that even their families are not prepared to discuss and consider such weighty concerns. They “may have to search far and wide to find others who share their sometimes esoteric interests or even to find someone who laughs at their sometimes quirky jokes. This challenge follows young gifted adults into the workplace, where the entry-level positions that they find themselves in can result in their being lost in the crowd, unable to find others with whom they otherwise might feel a genuine sense of connectedness” (Fiedler, 2008, p. 170).

Although they want to relate to others, gifted individuals often encounter what Arthur Jensen (2004) has described as an intellectual “zone of tolerance”— that is, in order to have a long-lasting and meaningful relationship with another person, that person should be within about plus or minus 20 IQ points of one’s ability level. Outside of that zone, there will be differences in thinking speed and depth or span of interests, which will likely lead to impatience, dissatisfaction, frustration, and tension on the part of each participant.

Gifted children and adults are often surprised to realize that they are different. It is painful when others criticize them for being too idealistic, too serious, too sensitive, too intense, too impatient, or as having too weird a sense of humor. Gifted children, particularly as they enter adolescence, may feel very alone in an absurd, arbitrary, and meaningless world, which they feel powerless to change. They may feel that adults in charge are not worthy of the authority they hold. As one child described it, they feel “like abandoned aliens waiting for the mother ship to come and take them home” (Webb, Amend, Webb, Goerss, Beljan, & Olenchak, 2005, p. 136). This alienation creates social and emotional issues for them with their age peers, as well as with their teachers, which only adds to the possibility of depression.

When their intensity is combined with multi-potentiality — giftedness in several areas—these youngsters may also become frustrated with the existential limitations of space and time. Although they try to cram 27 hours worth of living into a 24-hour day, there simply isn’t enough time to develop all of the talents and interests that they may have. They have to make choices, but the choices among so many possibilities feel unfair because they seem arbitrary; there is no "ultimately right" choice. Choosing a college major or a vocation is difficult when one is trying to make a decision between passion and talent in areas as diverse as violin, genetics, theoretical mathematics, and international relations. How can one be all that one can be ? In truth, one cannot be all that one “could” be in every area. This realization can be very frustrating.

The reaction of gifted youngsters (again with intensity) to these frustrations is often one of a righteous indignation — they feel, “It isn’t right!” or “It isn’t fair!” But they quickly discover that their anger is futile; they realize that it is ineffective when directed at "fate" or at other circumstances which they are not able to control. Anger that is powerless evolves quickly into depression. It is a type of “learned helplessness,” a phrase coined by psychologist Martin Seligman (1991). “I’m helpless; I can’t solve this.”

In such depression, people typically — and often desperately — try to discover some sense of meaning, some anchor point that they can grasp that will allow them to pull themselves out of the mire and muck of injustice or unfairness. Often, though, the more they try to struggle out of — or wallow in — their depression, the more they become acutely aware that their life is brief and ultimately finite, that they are alone and are only one very small organism in a very large world, and that there is a frightening freedom and responsibility regarding how one chooses to live one's life. They feel disillusioned, and they question life's meaning, often asking themselves, "Is this all there is to life ? Isn’t there some ultimate and universal meaning ? Does life only have meaning if I give it meaning ? I am one small, insignificant organism alone in an absurd, arbitrary, and capricious world where my life can have little impact, and then I just die. Is this all there is ?" Questions like this promote a sense of personal disintegration.

Such concerns are not surprising in thoughtful adults who are going through some sort of quarter-life or mid-life crisis. However, it is startling and alarming when these sorts of existential questions are foremost in the mind of a 10- or 12- or 15-year-old. Such existential depressions in children deserve careful attention, , since they can be precursors to suicide.

Existential Issues and Dabrowski’s Theory

Dabrowski implied that gifted individuals are more likely to experience existential depression; several concepts within his theory of positive disintegration explain why gifted children and adults may be predisposed to this type of depression (Mendaglio, 2008b). Fundamentally, Dabrowski noted that persons with greater “developmental potential”— an inborn, constitutional endowment that includes a high level of reactivity of the central nervous system called overexcitability — have a greater awareness of the expanse of life and of different ways that people can live their lives, but this greater developmental potential also predisposes them to emotional and interpersonal crises.

Persons with heightened overexcitabilities in one or more of the five areas that Dabrowski listed — intellectual, emotional, imaginational, psychomotor, and sensual — perceive reality in a different, more intense, multifaceted manner. They are likely to be more sensitive than others to issues in themselves and in the world around them and to react more intensely to those issues. To the extent that they have intellectual overexcitability, they are more likely to ponder and question. Their emotional overexcitability makes them more sensitive to issues of morality and fairness. Their imaginational overexcitability prompts them to envision how things might be. Overall, their overexcitabilities help them live multifaceted and nuanced lives, but these same overexcitabilities are also likely to make them more sensitive to existential issues.

Dabrowski also emphasized the role of socialization, which he called the “second factor,” as a key force influencing personal development, though the amount of a culture’s influence varies with each person’s inborn developmental potential. Nevertheless, the social environment often squelches autonomy, and “adjustment to a society that is itself ‘primitive and confused’ is adevelopmental [i.e., hinders development] and holds one back from discovering individual essence and from exercising choice in shaping and developing one’s self…” (Tillier, 2008, p. 108).

Even so, when one becomes more aware of the scope and complexity of life and of one’s culture, one begins to experience self-doubt, anxiety, and depression; Dabrowski emphasized that all of these — as discomforting as they are — are necessary steps on the path toward heightened development. Thus, as one becomes more aware of “what ought to be” rather than just “what is,” he or she experiences increasing discomfort and disillusionment, often leading to a personal disintegration that, according to Dabrowski, is a necessary step before one can reintegrate at a higher level of acceptance and understanding — a new level representing growth.

Reintegration at a higher level is not a certainty, though. Whether or not one is in fact able to reintegrate depends on what Dabrowski called the “third factor”— an inner force, largely inborn, that impels people to become more self-determined and to control their behaviors by their inner belief/value matrix, rather than by societal conventions or even their own biological needs. This third factor allows people to live their lives consciously and deliberately, acting in accordance with their own personal values. The dynamic of the third factor drives people toward introspection, self-education, and self-development, and it allows them to reintegrate themselves at a higher level so that they can transcend their surroundings in a highly moral and altruistic fashion. Some individuals, however, may disintegrate and fail to reintegrate at a higher level, or they may stay at the same level as before. Of course it is desirable to reintegrate at the higher level.

Dabrowski’s descriptions of integration and disintegration are important but are also complex, so I will provide only the highlights of those that are particularly relevant to existential depression. In Dabrowski’s view, there are two types of integration — primary and secondary — and four types of disintegration—positive, negative, partial, and global.

« Primary integration characterizes individuals who are largely under the influence of the first factor (biology) and the second factor (environment). These individuals experience the human life cycle and may become very successful in societal terms, but they are not fully developed human beings. Persons characterized by secondary integration are influenced primarily by the third factor; they are inner directed and values driven. As fully human, they live life autonomously, authentically, and altruistically. Biological drives are sublimated into higher modes of expression. Conformity and nonconformity to societal norms are principled. Movement from primary to secondary integration arises from positive disintegration. » (Mendaglio, 2008b, p. 36)

Positive disintegration involves a two-step process. First, the lower primary integration — which involves little, if any, reflection — must be dissolved; subsequently, one must reintegrate to create a higher level of functioning (Dabrowski, 1970). During the first step of dissolution, individuals experience “…intense external and internal conflicts that generate intense negative emotions. Such experiencing may be initially triggered by developmental milestones, such as puberty, or crises, such as a painful divorce or a difficult career event or the death of a loved one. As a result, individuals become increasingly conscious of self and the world. They become more and more distressed as they perceive a discrepancy between the way the world ought to be and the way it is…”(Mendaglio, 2008b, p. 27).

The way these persons view and structure the world is thrown into ambiguity and turmoil, along with the internal guidelines that they have thoughtlessly adopted from society to guide their daily behaviors. The external structure that they are steeped with becomes contradictory or meaningless when confronted with articulate, conscious individual experience.

Because people can only stand conflict and ambiguity for a relatively brief time, they will create a new mental organization as they attempt to reduce their anxiety and discomfort. However, this new mental schema may be only partially successful; these individuals may find themselves aware of inconsistencies and pretenses within their new way of thinking, though they may try desperately to convince themselves otherwise. They experience, then, only the dissolving part of the process — without reintegration at a higher level — leaving them with negative disintegration and the accompanying conflicts and negative emotions. Worse, they are unable to return to their previous unthinking way of being (“the rung bell”).

Some individuals, usually those with substantial initial integration and limited potential to develop, will fall back and reintegrate at their previous level; others find themselves stuck in disintegration — a serious situation that Dabrowski said could lead to psychosis or

suicide.

According to Dabrowski, some people are in fact able to complete both parts of the process — both disintegration and subsequent positive reintegration. They develop an acceptance of their self-awareness and self-direction in ways that allow them to select values that transcend the immediate culture and are from then on focused on more universal, humanistic, and altruistic values. They may select a new vocation in which they can use their altruistic vision or a new partner with whom they can share their important values. This higher-level mental organization allows more of a sense of personal contentment with a striving to continually improve, though these people will likely still experience episodes of disintegration, discomfort, and reintegration as their awareness continues to grow.

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