Feeling it all: Overexcitabilities and the gifted

Abstract

Over the past twenty five years much has been written on the application of Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD) in gifted education - especially where he talks about the existence of five overexcitabilities amongst the gifted. The term ‘overexcitabilities’ refers to the the way gifted people often respond to the world around them; consisting of psychomotor; sensual; imaginational; intellectual and emotional overexcitabilities. In future editions Feeling it All will look at each one of these excitabilities in more detail.

The intense characteristic of many gifted and creative people and their often sensitive and passionate nature might be explained by understanding ‘overexcitabilities’(OEs). Dabrowski (1972) coined the term overexcitability which he defined as higher than average responsiveness to stimuli, manifested by either psychomotor, sensual, emotional (affective), imaginational, or intellectual excitability, or the combination thereof .