Listen now (54 min)| In episode 84, Chris and Emma returned after a break, and this episode marks a change. There’s no guest, no introduction, and no formalities—just the two of us dropping into a real and intimate conversation about positive maladjustment, not in theory but in the way we’re living it right now.
You made my morning! I’m so excited that I will get to engage with the theory through you two again. Nothing quite like the real deal of those who live it. And so much unfolding that needs to be connected. 😌
I just got around to listening to this episode last week. And it’s taken me another week to make this comment (almost every episode inspires thoughts to share). So, in a way, I’m grateful you’ve taken a hiatus. More articles, more podcasts, more of anything is not necessarily better. We need rest. To digest. I’m glad you both are honoring your own needs for a respite and reconsideration of where you want to next take this.
Which brings us to this current juncture. What you are navigating here, this transition from dialogue focused on distinct guests to an ongoing conversation between Chris and Emma is welcomed.
As you note, guests bring their own perspectives and specific realms of focus. This has been and remains helpful, yet it can be hard to find continuity within the broad spectrum of experiences the Theory of Positive Disintegration may encompass. One person’s journey follows a general framework of the theory, yet it’s also unique to that person. And perhaps, as you both are sensing, we are at a point where we need to take in and consider a fuller context of one person’s story, considered not in a single episode (as occurs with guests), but over many. Having a dialogue between two individuals within such a structure can show the commonalities of Positive Maladjustment as well as how it plays out via quite different details through the eyes of two connected, yet still distinct, individuals.
In a sense, you are both telling your stories and these cannot be fully digested in a single episode. It takes extended narrative to get into the nuance. Frodo’s journey in the Lord of the Rings needs a thousand pages to give it full justice. Odysseus just wants to go home to his land and family, yet as mightily as he tries, it still takes him twenty years to find his way back. Dorothy has to travel, unwillingly, to the strange land of Oz where she meets companions and foes and then must perform a series labors… all in order to realize that “there is no place like home.”
It’s time for such narrative storytelling to become more prominent vis-à-vis Positive Disintegration. The realm of academic research and the dynamics that arise around it is important and necessary. But we are a storytelling species and we need more epic tales around the theory.
Over the course of the podcast, we’ve heard bits and pieces of both your journeys. I, for one, find these personal snippets to be amongst the most resonant elements. We hear an abstract explanation of the theory and perhaps an anecdote to illustrate it. I believe your instincts are spot on: now is the time to flip the format by telling your stories as the focal point, using the academic abstractions as a buttressing support.
I am one-hundred percent along for this ride. I hope I am not alone in this sentiment… I’m pretty confident we have much company. I’m not at all disappointed that you are starting to make a shift in focus. I greatly welcome it. Your stories have given profound perspective and meaning to my own. And no doubt many others!
Thank you for sharing these thoughts after listening, Eric. I had to wait until this morning to reply so my mind would be fresh when I responded. I know I speak for Emma, too, when I say we didn't know what kind of reception we'd get to the news that we're making changes. We hoped for the best but knew it might not be welcome news for some listeners. So, everything you've said here is very welcome, and I'm grateful for your words.
I've been sitting on a piece that I hope to release later this month with the announcement that I'm finally going to Australia in September to visit Emma and present at a conference in Brisbane, where I'll also get to meet Caitlin Hughes in person. Caitlin and I will be presenting the "Voices at the Margins" paper together, which came out as an episode this past winter.
I met Emma five years ago this month via video call. I couldn't have imagined at first that we would create a podcast together, but it was only three months later that episode one was released. What we had in common was a passion for the theory and a desire to bring it to the people who need it. Since that time, we've had more than 50 guests come on to talk about their work and lived experiences with TPD.
All this to say, it really does feel like the time has come for Emma and me to share more about our own lives and experiences with disintegration and rebuilding: the lessons, the people who were there for us, and the things that helped most along the way. What you said about extended narrative is close to what we've been feeling without having language for it. A single episode can hold an anecdote, but it can't hold a trajectory. The nuance lives in the length. So your instinct that these stories need room to unfold over many episodes rather than one is exactly the permission we were hoping to hear.
I was thinking last week about how it's only been in the past year that I've felt comfortable fielding comments here and taking part in the conversations. You've been a big part of making that possible for me. Thank you again. 🙏
Huge fan of personal experience as epistemological ground. And that sense of conflict when your personal experiences pull you away from a theory that has helped you in so many ways, that’s how I ultimately felt about philosophy in academia. Too much ivory tower, I concluded reluctantly, even though it opened my world in ways I never could have known otherwise.
Excited to hear the direction your taking the podcast in and that you've both been working on books! Looking forward to it all. Thanks for sticking at it - you're both modelling the great potential the theory has to offer, for everyone living with intensity and complexity (especially in the intense times we find ourselves in).
I've enjoyed what's going on here because of your and Emma's dynamic first and foremost...and this with 'grappling' going forward...being in grappling, tending to things that touch on the grown within a growing.
Thank you, Gerrit! It's always challenging to share the messy parts, especially the grappling. I've been moved by the feedback from this episode. Part of me was nervous about being so honest, and I'm glad I decided to trust that it was the right thing to do. Emma makes it easy for me to show up and say what's in my heart.
my read on Emma is that she can't help it, catalyzing statements from the heart...love this!...though it probably gets her in trouble sometimes.
my understanding of the theory itself is very limited, I'm actually more interested in the life-experiences (and moment) that led to its development (which you have touched on)...but that's me, what's the life behind the thinking. And what are the lives and experiences that evolve or nudge it, place it in the present again and again. Theories, any of them, when placed in the halls of 'Wissenschaft', have a reining-in aspect of knowing, and I don't mean this as a negative, it's about creating a lens for a way in, a springboard, or a tool for understanding...or a temporary foothold...to reach more people and lead to further questions ...and I remind myself of this when questioning aspects of this theory, the little I do understand. One thing I've been rummaging is, not what is a value, but how does a value roam within? The state of being of a value outside of its character, perhaps, what is its propulsion? (without falling into a darwinian convo or a religious-cultural frame)...not sure this is possible, except in the personal contemplative-relational experience of rummaging this in oneself, lived, prodded, over time...this may be, most likely is, yes, a heart situation...ending my comment here on a similar note as yours.
Gerrit, yes! Your read on Emma is exactly right. She catalyzes from the heart and probably does get into trouble for it sometimes. The life behind the thinking is exactly what I'm currently working on. I'm planning to publish a couple of pieces in July that delve further into the backstory of Dąbrowski's life and what shaped the theory's development. The question you're asking, how does a value roam within, is the kind that lives in the practice.
This is wonderful, I am so excited that you are owning it and breaking through- this will be a wonderful new chapter for your podcast. It helped me - in the last 6 months of discovering you two- with many things, including looking at my life through a giftedness lens, through a TPD lens, through a lens that’s not pathologising my intensity (among other things) and instead aiding the disintegrating self. Which leads me to my curiosity as your episode really left me wanting more, which my guess is that was deliberately so… :D If you can speak to it more, I am curious to hear of concrete examples why the field and theory interpretations have become, if I understood you correctly, somewhat toxic? And also - would you mind expanding on the repulsion toward the word gifted?
I am an early career academic (in a different social sciences field) but I resonate so much with the repulsion toward concepts that have been misused, with the alienation and erasure of lived experience, and with the ivory tower thinking that you speak to in this episode. Anywho, thanks so much for your work and I look forward to more!
Thank you for this, Laura. Your questions touch material I am developing in places where it can have the room it needs: scholarly papers, the book I'm finishing, and the Substack pieces in progress. I can offer an abridged version here.
The theory was built from clinical work with people in psychiatric crisis. When it was carried into gifted education in 1979, the clinical foundation and the connection to crisis fell away, and the field reduced overexcitability to a marker of gifted identity. People who arrive with the lived experience the theory was actually about (psychiatric history, neurodivergence, intensity that’s pathologized) often get redirected away from that experience and toward the gifted identity.
That redirection is the pattern hardest to live with from inside, and I think it is what you heard underneath what we said. The word giftedness has come to name an identity organized around cognitive testing and asynchronous development, and that identity often functions as a kind of armor.
Your read of the ivory-tower problem resonates. Lived experience as epistemological ground is the methodological commitment that organizes everything I am currently doing. You are not alone in finding the alienation generative rather than disqualifying. More is coming. Thank you again. 🙏
You made my morning! I’m so excited that I will get to engage with the theory through you two again. Nothing quite like the real deal of those who live it. And so much unfolding that needs to be connected. 😌
Thank you so much, Dawn! Knowing that folks have missed us and feel excited about our new direction has really made my morning. 🥰
I am very much looking forward to more from you both!💜💜
Thank you, Michelle! We’re excited about taking the show in a new direction. ❤️
Yay, so good to see you back! You two are the BEST. Life-changing. Can't wait to see what's to come.
Thank you so much, Manon! We’re glad to be recording again. 🙏
I love this episode so much!
Thank you so much, Deanna! ❤️
I just got around to listening to this episode last week. And it’s taken me another week to make this comment (almost every episode inspires thoughts to share). So, in a way, I’m grateful you’ve taken a hiatus. More articles, more podcasts, more of anything is not necessarily better. We need rest. To digest. I’m glad you both are honoring your own needs for a respite and reconsideration of where you want to next take this.
Which brings us to this current juncture. What you are navigating here, this transition from dialogue focused on distinct guests to an ongoing conversation between Chris and Emma is welcomed.
As you note, guests bring their own perspectives and specific realms of focus. This has been and remains helpful, yet it can be hard to find continuity within the broad spectrum of experiences the Theory of Positive Disintegration may encompass. One person’s journey follows a general framework of the theory, yet it’s also unique to that person. And perhaps, as you both are sensing, we are at a point where we need to take in and consider a fuller context of one person’s story, considered not in a single episode (as occurs with guests), but over many. Having a dialogue between two individuals within such a structure can show the commonalities of Positive Maladjustment as well as how it plays out via quite different details through the eyes of two connected, yet still distinct, individuals.
In a sense, you are both telling your stories and these cannot be fully digested in a single episode. It takes extended narrative to get into the nuance. Frodo’s journey in the Lord of the Rings needs a thousand pages to give it full justice. Odysseus just wants to go home to his land and family, yet as mightily as he tries, it still takes him twenty years to find his way back. Dorothy has to travel, unwillingly, to the strange land of Oz where she meets companions and foes and then must perform a series labors… all in order to realize that “there is no place like home.”
It’s time for such narrative storytelling to become more prominent vis-à-vis Positive Disintegration. The realm of academic research and the dynamics that arise around it is important and necessary. But we are a storytelling species and we need more epic tales around the theory.
Over the course of the podcast, we’ve heard bits and pieces of both your journeys. I, for one, find these personal snippets to be amongst the most resonant elements. We hear an abstract explanation of the theory and perhaps an anecdote to illustrate it. I believe your instincts are spot on: now is the time to flip the format by telling your stories as the focal point, using the academic abstractions as a buttressing support.
I am one-hundred percent along for this ride. I hope I am not alone in this sentiment… I’m pretty confident we have much company. I’m not at all disappointed that you are starting to make a shift in focus. I greatly welcome it. Your stories have given profound perspective and meaning to my own. And no doubt many others!
Thank you for sharing these thoughts after listening, Eric. I had to wait until this morning to reply so my mind would be fresh when I responded. I know I speak for Emma, too, when I say we didn't know what kind of reception we'd get to the news that we're making changes. We hoped for the best but knew it might not be welcome news for some listeners. So, everything you've said here is very welcome, and I'm grateful for your words.
I've been sitting on a piece that I hope to release later this month with the announcement that I'm finally going to Australia in September to visit Emma and present at a conference in Brisbane, where I'll also get to meet Caitlin Hughes in person. Caitlin and I will be presenting the "Voices at the Margins" paper together, which came out as an episode this past winter.
I met Emma five years ago this month via video call. I couldn't have imagined at first that we would create a podcast together, but it was only three months later that episode one was released. What we had in common was a passion for the theory and a desire to bring it to the people who need it. Since that time, we've had more than 50 guests come on to talk about their work and lived experiences with TPD.
All this to say, it really does feel like the time has come for Emma and me to share more about our own lives and experiences with disintegration and rebuilding: the lessons, the people who were there for us, and the things that helped most along the way. What you said about extended narrative is close to what we've been feeling without having language for it. A single episode can hold an anecdote, but it can't hold a trajectory. The nuance lives in the length. So your instinct that these stories need room to unfold over many episodes rather than one is exactly the permission we were hoping to hear.
I was thinking last week about how it's only been in the past year that I've felt comfortable fielding comments here and taking part in the conversations. You've been a big part of making that possible for me. Thank you again. 🙏
Huge fan of personal experience as epistemological ground. And that sense of conflict when your personal experiences pull you away from a theory that has helped you in so many ways, that’s how I ultimately felt about philosophy in academia. Too much ivory tower, I concluded reluctantly, even though it opened my world in ways I never could have known otherwise.
Thank you for this. 🙏 You’re reminding me that I’m grateful for the experiences, and many lessons were learned from it all.
Excited to hear the direction your taking the podcast in and that you've both been working on books! Looking forward to it all. Thanks for sticking at it - you're both modelling the great potential the theory has to offer, for everyone living with intensity and complexity (especially in the intense times we find ourselves in).
Thank you so much, Jamie! We’re excited about this new direction and looking forward to sharing more soon. ✨
I've enjoyed what's going on here because of your and Emma's dynamic first and foremost...and this with 'grappling' going forward...being in grappling, tending to things that touch on the grown within a growing.
Thank you, Gerrit! It's always challenging to share the messy parts, especially the grappling. I've been moved by the feedback from this episode. Part of me was nervous about being so honest, and I'm glad I decided to trust that it was the right thing to do. Emma makes it easy for me to show up and say what's in my heart.
my read on Emma is that she can't help it, catalyzing statements from the heart...love this!...though it probably gets her in trouble sometimes.
my understanding of the theory itself is very limited, I'm actually more interested in the life-experiences (and moment) that led to its development (which you have touched on)...but that's me, what's the life behind the thinking. And what are the lives and experiences that evolve or nudge it, place it in the present again and again. Theories, any of them, when placed in the halls of 'Wissenschaft', have a reining-in aspect of knowing, and I don't mean this as a negative, it's about creating a lens for a way in, a springboard, or a tool for understanding...or a temporary foothold...to reach more people and lead to further questions ...and I remind myself of this when questioning aspects of this theory, the little I do understand. One thing I've been rummaging is, not what is a value, but how does a value roam within? The state of being of a value outside of its character, perhaps, what is its propulsion? (without falling into a darwinian convo or a religious-cultural frame)...not sure this is possible, except in the personal contemplative-relational experience of rummaging this in oneself, lived, prodded, over time...this may be, most likely is, yes, a heart situation...ending my comment here on a similar note as yours.
Gerrit, yes! Your read on Emma is exactly right. She catalyzes from the heart and probably does get into trouble for it sometimes. The life behind the thinking is exactly what I'm currently working on. I'm planning to publish a couple of pieces in July that delve further into the backstory of Dąbrowski's life and what shaped the theory's development. The question you're asking, how does a value roam within, is the kind that lives in the practice.
This is wonderful, I am so excited that you are owning it and breaking through- this will be a wonderful new chapter for your podcast. It helped me - in the last 6 months of discovering you two- with many things, including looking at my life through a giftedness lens, through a TPD lens, through a lens that’s not pathologising my intensity (among other things) and instead aiding the disintegrating self. Which leads me to my curiosity as your episode really left me wanting more, which my guess is that was deliberately so… :D If you can speak to it more, I am curious to hear of concrete examples why the field and theory interpretations have become, if I understood you correctly, somewhat toxic? And also - would you mind expanding on the repulsion toward the word gifted?
I am an early career academic (in a different social sciences field) but I resonate so much with the repulsion toward concepts that have been misused, with the alienation and erasure of lived experience, and with the ivory tower thinking that you speak to in this episode. Anywho, thanks so much for your work and I look forward to more!
Thank you for this, Laura. Your questions touch material I am developing in places where it can have the room it needs: scholarly papers, the book I'm finishing, and the Substack pieces in progress. I can offer an abridged version here.
The theory was built from clinical work with people in psychiatric crisis. When it was carried into gifted education in 1979, the clinical foundation and the connection to crisis fell away, and the field reduced overexcitability to a marker of gifted identity. People who arrive with the lived experience the theory was actually about (psychiatric history, neurodivergence, intensity that’s pathologized) often get redirected away from that experience and toward the gifted identity.
That redirection is the pattern hardest to live with from inside, and I think it is what you heard underneath what we said. The word giftedness has come to name an identity organized around cognitive testing and asynchronous development, and that identity often functions as a kind of armor.
Your read of the ivory-tower problem resonates. Lived experience as epistemological ground is the methodological commitment that organizes everything I am currently doing. You are not alone in finding the alienation generative rather than disqualifying. More is coming. Thank you again. 🙏
I loved Emma’s description of the “lived experience sandwich”!
I loved that, too!