Friday, November 14, 2014

Learner Therapist (51) … Valuing your gift
Torrey Orton
November 15, 2014


Polymaths aside, most of us are gifted in some sense. That is, we have strong preferences for different life activities. These may range from a gift for being active, for taking action, to a gift for music or numbers, or…on it goes. Take a list of human needs and you can populate a map of potential gifts. These gifts are the source(s) of our vocational interests and preferences, or the matters of style which couch the interests in optimum performance settings. They seem to be congenital effects with a positive spin, if they can be expressed and developed. On good days we are thankful that others have the gifts we don’t so we don’t have to spend much time doing unattractive things like programming applications, taking care of the wayward, milking cows….what I call the natural division of labour.

A gift makes itself known to us by imposing itself on us, and, through our submission to its compulsion, on others who may be the first to notice it. What we do is what we do and therefore not necessarily a subject of reflective observation until its impinging on others draws their attention to our behaviour. Kids often have this experience of validation by others early in schooling or the reverse: its denial of validation by their parents or teachers. They may object that certain gifts are not socially or economically viable - “don‘t let anyone see you doing that; they’ll think you’re crazy” or “you’ll never make a living painting, lad!”

A gift of any sort has a number of characteristics. \

·         One, it is self-validating because it arises undoubtedly from within individuals. I hear a gift’s presence in patient remarks like: “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write. I was putting stories together before I learned to write.” Or, “I started drawing before I could write…I just doodled my way through primary school, and continue to this day.” (holding up a sketch of me on their notepad)

·         Two, it is self-sustaining because it is its own energy source, drawing on the total available to a person and siphoning it off into the focal length of the target domain.

·         Three, it is intrinsically motivating.

·         Fourth, the shaped energy of our gift feels to others sometimes like a command to make way for us, even though it may not be our intention at all. Gifted actions tend to have clarity of direction, form and content – that is, they focus on definite materials, in an observable manner towards some kind of objective or vision.

·         Fifth, gifted action tends to produce the all-embracing conscious experience called “flow” – a state at times like presence or mindfulness in action.

·         Sixth, gifted action feels creative in some sense and it may actually produce something; it tends to build or construct.

·         And, seventh, the activity of the gifted feels unique; it is what makes us unique in our eyes (and sometimes those of others!).

In therapy for complex trauma the presence of workable gifts is an essential, though not sufficient, condition for something better than mere survival. What a gift does is help a partially whole person, what’s called “high functioning” in our trade, to emerge from the dreck of abuses, ambling alongside the abuse in the self-affirming developmental steps intrinsic to the gift. Some of these may translate into socio-economic successes which fully obscure the injuries of trauma to others (who want us to be normal so they don’t have to put themselves out to engage our uniqueness).

But the agents of these successes often don’t consciously take them for what they are: confirmations of their worth. So, part of therapy is to help patients establish their objective realities, to point out the unintended evidence of their own performance self-reports occurring or implied naturally in therapy. This can take great therapeutic persistence because the defence against recognising their successes is a central dynamic of protection from further harm – the harm of disappointment again that they have not done well enough, not been perfect…!!!

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