Counseling the Gifted: Articles by Andrew S. Mahoney

I frequently write on the challenges and issues faced by gifted and talented people. These articles explore how counselors, parents and educators can help gifted people fulfill their potential -- especially by helping them become aware of and accept the full meaning and experience of their gifts and talents. The following articles can be read online as web pages or downloaded and viewed as Adobe Acrobat pdf files.

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It's All About Identity
"I have become increasingly aware of how far our society has to go to provide our gifted children with an affirmation and validation of their existence. We are benign at best."

In Search of the Gifted Identity:
From abstract concept to workable counseling constructs
The Gifted Identity Formation Model, presented in this article, helps bridge the theoretical with the practical, includes identity and is its formation as crucial variables in the counseling process, and uses identity as the baseline for intervention.

Coping Through Awareness:
A transformational tool for coping with being highly gifted
Explore the Awareness Model developed by Dr. Vince Sweeney, and learn how to use it as a transformational tool to help gifted people make meaning of their experience and grow through their newfound acceptance of their identity as gifted.

Giftedness and Academic Underachievement: What lies beneath
A tapescript of a session with a highly gifted 19-year-old male student gives insights into the complexity of the student's struggle with self, emotion, achievement, identity and worth -- and offers therapists insights into how they must see beyond a client's verbal pyrotechnics to reveal the real emotional issues at play.

Exceptional Children Require an Exceptional Approach:
Issues in counseling gifted children
This article identifies and discusses important issues encountered in assessing and counseling gifted children.

An Overview: Understanding and Assessing Suicide in the Gifted
A list of the factors that counselors, parents and teachers should understand to better assess and intervene with gifted at risk of suicide.