Working with the Gifted and High-Functioning: What Others May Not See

Beyond Appearances

On the outside, gifted and high-functioning people often appear to be triumphant. They may be successful, accomplished, and capable. But what others don’t always see is the intensity beneath the surface: the sensitivity, perfectionism, or inner restlessness that can make life feel overwhelming.

Gifted people often experience life with heightened sensitivity, both emotionally and imaginatively. This can be a strength, but it can also create challenges that are easily misunderstood. Many of the clients I see in Atwater Village who identify as gifted or high-functioning carry a quiet weight: anxiety that never quite lets up, a sense of alienation, or a feeling of being “too much” for others.

Highly-Sensitive as Both Gift and Burden

High sensitivity can mean noticing subtleties others miss, feeling deeply moved by art or beauty, or having vivid inner worlds. But it can also mean being more easily overstimulated, misunderstood, or dismissed as “overreacting.”

Gifted individuals may push themselves relentlessly, holding impossibly high standards. To the outside world, this can look like confidence or drive. Inside, it often feels like pressure, self-doubt, or a sense of never being enough.

This is the paradox of the gifted experience, and the very traits that fuel creativity, empathy, and achievement can also lead to exhaustion, disconnection, and loneliness.

A Place to Be Fully Received

In therapy, what matters most is creating a space where all this intensity can be welcomed, rather than judged. My therapy hero, Carl Rogers, spoke of the healing power of authenticity and deep contact and of being fully seen and received without pretense. For gifted clients, this can be especially important.

Many tell me they feel pressure to hide parts of themselves, to tone down their depth, passion, or sensitivity. Therapy offers a different kind of relationship: one where they don’t have to hold back, where their complexity isn’t “too much,” but simply what is.

Through Focusing, this acceptance deepens. By turning inward toward the body’s subtle signals, the “felt sense”, clients can begin to trust their inner experience instead of pushing it away. What first feels like “too much” often unfolds into clarity, self-understanding, and relief.

What Therapy Can Offer the Gifted and High-Functioning

For gifted and high-functioning adults in Los Angeles, therapy can become a place to:

• Release the pressure of constant performance

• Explore the parts of themselves that feel unseen or misunderstood

• Learn to hold intensity with curiosity instead of fear

• Reconnect with creativity and authenticity without burnout

  
  

Therapy can have an “atmosphere of freedom.” In that atmosphere, gifted clients can drop the masks they wear in the world and discover that they don’t need to shrink or hide. They can bring their whole selves, their brilliance, and their struggles into the room.

Moving Forward

Working with gifted and high-functioning individuals has shown me how much can shift when someone finally feels understood in their depth. Sensitivity and intensity are not problems to be fixed; they are part of what makes a person fully alive.

Therapy offers the safety to explore that aliveness, to listen more closely to what it asks for, and to carry it forward with greater confidence and ease. In that process, the hidden weight many gifted clients carry can transform into a source of strength and meaning.

If you'd like to have a free, no pressure consultation call, please contact me.