Counseling Gifted Women: Becoming the Heroes of Our Own Stories

Abstract

The journey toward becoming one's best is a heroic quest which demands strength, courage, independence, and perseverance. This paper assists counselors and psychotherapists to understand and illuminate the issues, obstacles, and challenges confronting gifted women, and to empower their clients to claim and express their high potential. These issues are drawn from the author's interviews with clients and colleagues, a survey of participants at a 1986 conference for and about gifted women, and a comprehensive literature review. Gifted women are urged to recognize and externalize cultural and familial devaluation, refuse to be invisible or to "disappear," resist the pull of the status quo, and envision new possibilities for personal fulfillment. Guidelines, strategies, and resources for enabling these goals are discussed.As a psychologist with ten years of clinical experience, four of which have focused on gifted women, I am very concerned about the lack of attention paid to this population. The dilemma of the gifted woman is a provocative topic which often evokes avoidance or a strong emotional response, but it must be addressed directly, openly and honestly from the perspectives of theory, research, and clinical practice if we are to understand how women live with and live out the promise of their giftedness.Elsewhere (Noble, 1987a, in press) I have described in greater detail the cognitive, social, and cultural forces which inhibit gifted women from developing their potential. This article will briefly review the issues which I believe are most salient for counseling gifted women, and suggest ways in which counselors can assist their clients to reclaim the fullness of themselves. These issues are drawn from interviews with clients in my clinical practice, colleagues, a survey of 109 women attending the 1986 "Women of Kathleen D. Noble is a Licensed Psychologist in private practice,

Is research on gender‐specific underachievement in gifted girls an obsolete topic? New findings on an often discussed issue

“…Parents expect their gifted daughters to achieve well in all school subjects, including mathematics and the natural sciences; all the same, they deem these domains as being hardly relevant for later careers for their daughters (Noble, 1989); in addition they``discover'' concrete talents in their daughters more infrequently, and if they do, the reaction more often is`o verprotective'' (Kerr, 2000). For these reasons, and since in general boys are more frequently identi®ed as being gifted (cp.…”

Talented Female Students' Resistance to Science: An exploratory study of post-secondary achievement motivation, persistence, and epistemological characteristics

“…Ware et al, 1985;Rosser & Potter, 1990;Sadker & Sadker, 1994), stereotypes of Math and Science as masculine domains (e.g. Hollinger, 1991;Hyde et al, 1990;Noble, 1989), and peer and parental influences (e.g. Callahan et al, 1994;Eccles, Jacobs & Harold, 1990;Kramer, 1991) have been found to operate singularly, and in conjunction with individual constructs, to influence women's achievement and achievement-related decisions in the Sciences.…”

An annotated bibliography of non‐fictional books and curricular materials to encourage gifted females

“…S uggestions for improving social and cultural factors bear much similarity. Some consensual validity may be assumed from the commonality found within these suggestions (Bell, 1989;Callahan, 1979;Grau, 1985, Kerr, 1985Noble, 1989;Olshen & Matthews, 1987;Reis, 1987;Wells, 1985). For example, teachers and parents must provide the types of toys that are more challenging and tend to stimulate the imagination of both boys and girls (Blaubergs, 1980).…”

“…© 1991. Roeper City and Country School, Michigan counselors, teachers and parents more than their male counterparts, are more critical of themselves at an early age, and have lower confidence about their abilities and diminished career choices than gifted males in college (Arnold & Denny, 1985;Callahan, 1979;Eccles, 1985;Fox, 1977;Grau, 1985;Hollinger & Fleming, 1984;Kerr, 1985;Noble, 1989;Reis, 1987;Rodenstein & Glickhauf-Hughes, 1979;Schwartz, 1980). S uggestions for improving social and cultural factors bear much similarity.…”