Interesting Quotes, Vol. 12

Writing the Origins paper

Today’s post comes to you thanks to re-reading the paper I wrote with Dr. Frank Falk called “The Origins and Conceptual Evolution of Overexcitability.” I’ve mentioned the paper several times recently, and I thought readers might like to know more about the writing process.

I knew that the Origins paper needed to be written long before I began writing. It felt like an enormous topic, and I didn’t even know where to start. The enormity of it all meant that I delayed getting started on it until Michael and Frank were both pretty frustrated with me.

“It occurred to me to not write the paper, but I know it must be done. And yet, I’m having such a hard time. My mind isn’t clear on how to proceed at all. Michael tells me to just “write it up” like it’s simple.

I feel so stuck and like I’m just not making progress. I have some basic questions that need to be answered with the paper and the direction we want to take. I feel a little defeated at the moment. I decided to look over my notes from August, and they aren’t nearly as helpful as I felt they were the other day. They’re mostly about the connections with ADHD and autism, and this paper—is this paper going to attempt to connect these dots? In his early work, it seemed like Dabrowski pathologized the OEs more than in his later work. In Mental Growth, for instance, there really was much more of a connection with giftedness.” (Journal entry, September 4, 2019)

During the summer of 2019, I started delving into the history of ADHD and autism and made some progress reading about the neurodiversity paradigm. I also worked with Frank on exploring aspects of OE that existed in Dabrowski’s work but not in the modern literature, such as the distinction between broad and narrow or confined OEs. Here’s an example from Dąbrowski’s (1996) book Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions, Vol. 1:

“At lower levels of development overexcitability is more often confined than all-inclusive, and more often it occurs in isolation from other forms. The characteristics of a low level of development as being primitive, of little consciousness (reflection) and control, ahierarchical, egocentric, selfish and non-creative, apply also to the manifestations of overexcitability. The characteristics of a high level of development are the very opposite.” (p. 74)

Here are some examples of broad vs narrow that I noted in my journal from that same page:

“Broad emotional OE: displays a great deal of inner psychic transformation, a rich hierarchical inner psychic milieu, and strong control by inhibition. Sensitivity.

Confined/narrow emotional OE: distinctly irritable and insensitive to others, egocentric, poorly reflective, of little insight and empathy. Ahierarchical IPM [inner psychic milieu].

Broad psychomotor OE: Manifest great abilities toward planning, dynamic course of action, and organizational abilities. 

Narrow psychomotor OE: Violent irritability, lack of control in outward expression of crises such as acting out, physical fights, and destruction.”

Here’s what we said about the broad vs narrow OE distinction in our paper.

“In the first volume of Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions, Dąbrowski (1996) gave examples of different levels of OE based on the hierarchical levels of development in the theory. Multilevelness is one of the core concepts of TPD, along with developmental potential (Piechowski, 1974), and the OEs were no exception to his view that constructs can and should be viewed through a prism of levels. At lower levels of development the expressions of OEs would be considered confined or narrow and indicating a limited DP. At higher levels of development, the OEs would be regarded as broad, or global, and as mentioned, they are the raw material from which dynamisms emerge (Dąbrowski, 1996; Piechowski, 1975). The expressions of OE at a lower level are very different from the expressions of OE at a higher level (e.g., Dąbrowski, 1977, 1996) and they are not necessarily considered developmental at those lower levels. Dąbrowski (1996) pointed out the importance of the OEs within his theoretical framework by stating, “The five forms of overexcitability are the constitutional traits which make it possible to assess the strength of the developmental potential independently of the context of development.” (Wells & Falk, 2021, pp. 31-32)

That paragraph included issues that came up in my session at NAGC. For instance, the last sentence reminds me of myth #3, which states that OEs can only be understood within the context of the theory of positive disintegration. That’s simply not true.

Another thing I noted in my journal and included in the paper is an excerpt from Existential Thoughts and Aphorisms. This is one of my all-time favorites from Dabrowski:

“What a great mystery in creating an inner autonomy! They ask me its origin because it is different and even opposed to hereditary tendencies and influences of the environment. I answer I don’t know. I am wickedly delighted that I can’t give a scientific answer, only an intuitive one. It is simply a problem so deeply human that science cannot give an answer. We can only say that it comes from development, from conscious transformation, from one’s own experiences, from the independent and unrepeatable “I” and perhaps… perhaps with slight contact with the transcendental level.” (Cienin, 1972, p. 21)

I cut off the last sentence in the paper because I was trying to keep it as lean and to the point as possible, but I should have left the whole thing.

One of the things I worked on during the summer of 2019 was translating Dąbrowski’s 1935 book, Nerwowość Dzieci i Młodzieży [Nervousness of Children and Youth]. Here’s an entry from August 2019:

“I need to fix the translation of the 1935 chapter that I did and ask Michael for his thoughts next week. Today I’m reading it and there’s excellent information here. I’m ready to write about his methods. He described using purposeful, systematic observation in closed [locked] educational institutions, schools, and clinics. He said that although the best conditions for observation occurred when the individual was unaware of being observed, “open observation” could also be useful in cases of “anxiety, inhibition of drives (motor overexcitability, tics) and their compensation.”

Reading about Dabrowski’s methods in a book from 1935 felt inspiring. I included what I learned in the Origins paper. I hope that Michael can be persuaded to finish translating the book. There’s only one chapter left to do, and I threatened him with using AI if he can’t find the motivation for it.

Dabrowski used the terms overexcitability and hyperexcitability interchangeably. When searching for these terms in modern literature, I began seeing the connections between overexcitability, autism, and synesthesia. Here’s an example:

“I just downloaded a paper called “Neural Hyperexcitability in Autism Spectrum Disorders.” There was another related paper that I also downloaded [on synesthesia]. Apparently, “elevation in cortical excitability is observed in ASD at genetic, epigenetic, neural, and behavioral levels. While changes in cortical excitability affect general cognitive function, cortical excitability has especially profound effects on sensory phenotypes in ASD.” (p. 7) The authors are Takarae & Sweeney.” (Journal entry, August 2019)

Along with searching in the modern literature, I also went way back in history searching for OE:

“This afternoon, while working on the historical details, I made a good find in William James’s The Principles of Psychology. In Volume 2, he used psychic excitability, emotional excitability, and hyperexcitability. He also used psychic hyper-excitability. I pulled each lengthy section. The hyperexcitability excerpt is based on Charcot’s work, and now I’m tempted to revisit what KD said about Charcot. I sent the excerpts to Frank already, and I’m considering sending them to Michael.” (Journal entry, August 2019)

I finally started making progress with writing the paper in early October 2019. One of the topics that I worked on was the evolution of developmental potential (DP) in the theory. This had been the focus of a session Frank and I presented at the 2018 Dabrowski Congress.

Before Mental Growth Through Positive Disintegration, published in 1970, developmental potential was only named without further elucidation. In 1970, Dabrowski wrote:

“One can already observe in a child one and a half to two years old certain fairly well differentiated potentials of the developmental instinct. These can be expressed through various differentiated forms of psychic hyperexcitability such as sensual, psychomotor, emotional, imaginational or intellectual hyperexcitability.” (Dabrowski, 1970)

Aside from the five OEs, other aspects of developmental potential were mentioned. Sometimes, in combination with OEs:

“Intellectual hyperexcitability, accompanied by other forms of overexcitability, especially emotional and imaginational, together with some potential for intuition, can lead to an early development of special interests and talents.” (1970)

Dabrowski included special interests, talents, and abilities as part of DP.

In the Origins paper, we discussed the evolution of this concept over time, and we wrote about the three factors of development:

“The three factors of development were also fleshed out for the first time in Mental Growth. These were not discrete factors, per se, but conglomerations of factors, conditions, and chance that helped to set apart what Dąbrowski called the autonomous forces. The first factor includes the “hereditary, innate constitutional elements,” which includes overexcitability and “specific interests or aptitudes,” but also encompassed negative potentials such as a genetic propensity toward psychopathy or intellectual disability (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 33). The second factor includes the influence of the external environment, such as the family and the social milieu. The third factor of development is not automatically derived from these two, and it “represents the autonomous forces of self-directed development. In this sense the term “third factor” is used to denote the totality of the autonomous forces” (pp. 72-73). In Mental Growth it was made clear that the term third factor was used two ways in the theory, both as a factor of development and as a dynamism of valuation, or “the agent of conscious choice in development” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 73).” (Wells & Falk, 2021, pp. 28-29)

While working on writing the first draft of the paper, I stopped and translated Dabrowski’s 1949 Polish paper¹ with Google Translate because I needed to see what was in there. I spent an entire day on the translation and then sent it to Michael for feedback.

“I mentioned a section from 1949 that struck me as interesting when I replied to Michael this morning. KD wrote “normal individuals without hereditary burdens and with uncomplicated mental equipment.” He was saying that normal people have a different experience of disintegration compared to those individuals with a rich DP. So even before he used DP to talk about the hereditary endowment, he discussed its parts. But how to write about it?” (Journal entry, October 2019)

This is what I included about the 1949 paper:

“The link between nervousness (overexcitability) and positive disintegration with giftedness and outstanding abilities is evident in the first outline of the theory:

“Disintegrating processes, loosening the coherence of the individual’s structure, and expressed in various forms of nervous and mental overexcitability—cannot usually be regarded as negative phenomena. Numerous signs of nervousness, sometimes with pronounced psychoneurotic or even psychopathic traits, characterize outstanding individuals. American research, research conducted at the Institute of Mental Prevention in Paris (Dr. Serrin) and the author’s own research indicate that among highly gifted children, the overwhelming majority are nervous children.” (Dąbrowski, 1949, p. 31; translated from the Polish.)

In 1949, Dąbrowski discussed the connection between nervousness, psychoneuroses, and giftedness in the context of personality development through positive disintegration in greater depth. Similar to his earlier work, he drew from the lives of eminent individuals and “very capable children” (Dabrowski, 1937, p. 99). (Wells & Falk, 2021, p. 27)

I wanted to connect the dots with giftedness in Dabrowski’s work since some people have questioned that connection. But I also wanted to make clear that he didn’t work only with that population. Click here for excerpts from Dabrowski about giftedness from a retrieval I made in QDA Miner from his English works while writing the paper.

In one section of the paper, “Asynchronous Development and Heightened Intensity,” we pointed out that overexcitability is part of the definition of giftedness as asynchronous development from the Columbus Group. Dabrowski wrote about developmental asynchrony in multiple places in his work, and we shared an excerpt from his unpublished manuscript Developmental Psychotherapy:

“The school should have on its staff persons qualified to give advice in difficult individual cases. Such “advisors” should know, for example, that the uneven progress of a gifted child is often a positive phenomenon and one which indicates that the child is sensitive, and creative, but easily exhausted, and thus should be not only understood, but treated in a special way. Such “advisors” or counselors should also realize that an oversensitive child or a fearful child can be highly gifted, that the fear of examination or of answering questions in front of the class inhibits the child, sometimes immobilizes him. Although highly gifted, such a child is very often considered inferior to “normal” children.” (Dabrowski, n.d., p. 281)

It took us about two months to produce a draft of the paper we could submit to a journal. It went through multiple rounds of peer review before eventually being published in a Polish journal called Psychologia Wychowawcza (Educational Psychology) in 2021.

From the section “The Future of Overexcitability”:

“When Dąbrowski was developing his theory, he was not attempting to explain giftedness as it is currently defined, in external terms of what one can do or produce. Instead, this is a theory that celebrates a multilevel perception of reality and creative inner transformation.

Gifted individuals are not a homogenous group, but much of the research on OE has been based on the hypothesis that OEs are a personality characteristic of giftedness. We suggest that an appropriate shift would be to acknowledge that while not all gifted individuals experience OE, many do, and those who do can benefit from the decades of work on Dąbrowski’s theory.” (Wells & Falk, pp. 37-38)

In the conclusion, we hoped to inspire new research on OE and the theory:

“We hope that our work in this paper, tracing the origins and evolution of OE, will lead to fresh research on OE within gifted education and also outside of the field. Since the introduction of OEs in 1979, there have not been any peer-reviewed papers examining its history in nervousness, or its evolution from Dąbrowski’s early works into gifted education, until now. Part of the problem was simply that the early work is in Polish, and it required translation into English. One important area of study to better understand OEs would be an examination of the experience of twice-exceptional students who are both gifted and identified with ADHD, autism, or sensory processing disorder. There is a significant overlap between the characteristics of these conditions and the overexcitabilities as described by Dąbrowski.” (Wells & Falk, p. 39)

In the original version of this post that went out to paid subscribers, I shared an error I thought I had made in the Origins paper. I’ve since realized that what we included in the paper is correct. I mentioned the issue in Interesting Quotes, Vol 14.

1. The title is “Dezintegracja Jako Pozytywny Etap w Rozwoju Jednostki” (“Disintegration as a Positive Stage in the Development of the Individual”).