In my Santa Monica office this is the side table next to me when I do coaching and psychotherapy. Photo: Lynne Azpeitia

 

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining (2008)
Sylvia Ho

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities, but to know someone who thinks and feels with us and who, though distant is close to us in spririt, this make the earth for us an inhabited garden.
— Goethe
Therapy with a supportive and knowledgeable therapist who understands how high intelligence, creativity and multiple talents and interests affect and add complexity to a person’s life circumstances and experience can be very helpful.

To schedule an appointment, begin coaching or arrange a free phone consultation email Lynne or call her at 310-828-7121

The Four Quadrants that make up Lynne's Psychotherapy & Coaching Practice. People enter through any quadrant.

The Four Quadrants that make up Lynne's Psychotherapy & Coaching Practice. People enter through any quadrant.

Psychotherapists who work with gifted people need to be aware of the differing perceptions, experiences, problems, and needs of people who are gifted in order to be optimally effective in working with them.
— C.Suzanne Schneider

Examine your old beliefs. Are they facts—or just opinions? Are they refutable? Investigate. If they aren’t producing good things in your life, replace them with better thoughts. Chellie Campbell

Many gifted individuals are searching for some cognitive framework through which they might understand themselves and their lives, but they also have a particular need to feel understood and to have a relationship with the treating professional.
— James Webb

Advanced Counseling & Therapy for Gifted & Creative Adults

Gifted Adult Psychotherapy Can Help You

Solve Your Problems, Develop Your Potential & Thrive

When I'm happy, it spills out all over.     Janet Cargill

Having a high performance mind, heart, and spirit is not as carefree as most people think  

Lower your frustration level with counseling and psychotherapy specifically designed for the needs of gifted, talented and creative adults. 

Gifted and creative adults need therapists, coaches, counselors and mentors who understand what giftedness is, what gifted people need, the challenges they face and the solutions that work to help them realize their potential and live fulfilling lives.

Working with 'multi-gifted' and creative adults requires an advanced approach and specialized knowledge, training and skills.

Any therapist who works with Gifted and Creative adults must realize that a vital part of working with Gifted and Creative Adults is that they need to understand intellectually exactly how their therapist is trying to help them before they are willing to take any kind of action or emotional risk.  

Therapy does not proceed without this.

As a therapist who's worked exclusively with gifted, creative and multi-talented adults for more than a decade, I'm familiar with the challenges these adults face daily and the kind of support, guidance and challenges that multi-capable, multi-interested adults need to live meaningful and productive lives.

Working with 'multi-gifted' and creative adults requires specialized knowledge, training and skills.

There's no need for a gifted and creative adult to suffer from worry, stress, depression or anxiety--whether it stems from current situations or from past experiences, relationships or family interactions.  

You Want to Talk to Someone...But How Do You Find the Right Person?

Gifted and creative adults who want to develop their potential, seek therapy with a trained professional who helps them heal their wounds and provides the guidance, support and expert advice that helps them through their crisis and recovery.

How much longer will you go on letting your energy sleep? How much longer are you going to stay oblivious of the immensity of yourself? Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Going it alone, toughing things out, is an honorable strategy, however, in many situations using this strategy can make a difficult situation even worse for gifted, creative and talented adults.  There is no need for you to wear yourself out.  Good help is available. 

It is astonishing how short a time it takes for very wonderful things to happen.          Frances Burnett

Life's hurts, traumas, disillusionments, disappointments and changes can be especially stressful, depleting, anxiety provoking and depression activating for Gifted, Talented and Creative Adults.

Get yourself some good counseling and psychotherapy before things get more complicated.

Stress is an untransformed opportunity for empowerment. Howard Martin

 An experienced therapist who works with gifted adults, knows how to engage, relate to and collaborate with the multi-talented gifted and creative adults who seek psychotherapy and counseling.  Read Lynne's article Psychotherapy with Gifted Adults for more information.

While many highly gifted, talented and creative people find it challenging to find a therapist  who has a similar level of intelligence and talents and is knowledgeable about how high intelligence and multiple abilities can complicate an individual's personal, professional, creative and community existence, good therapists who are gifted, talented and creative themselves can be found.  It takes work for everyone to find the right therapist.  These therapists exist.   Keep looking.

One of the many challenges gifted individuals face is in getting correctly identified by psychotherapists and others as gifted.

Individual counseling that provides guidance, support and learning tailored to the multi-talented, creative individual can be a useful tool for navigating life successfully.  

Why Seek Help?

The need and desire for inner transformation is an expression of what Dabrowski called the third factor – the drive behind autonomous, self-conscious, self-chosen and self-determined efforts at guiding one’s development.         Elizabeth Mika

Counseling can be helpful for gifted, talented and creative people who want help

  • Improving relationships at home, work or with friends.

  • Experiencing less stress, anger or anxiety

  • Recovering from anxiety, depression, grief, addictions.

  • Recovering from the breakup of a relationship

  • Healing wounds from the past that interfere with current success and enjoyment

  • Coping with children, adolescents, relocating, remarriage

  • Coping with separation, divorce or custody and visitation conflicts

  • Preventing or recovering from burnout

  • Coping with a major crisis such as a death in the family, chronic or terminal illness

  • Dealing with emotions and change when adult parents retire, relocate, divorce or remarry

  • Adjusting to caring for aging parents and help deciding on arrangements for care

If you're seeking therapy for yourself, think about the qualities and knowledge that are important for you to have in the therapist you see.  Make sure that the counselor you decide to work with has enough of these attributes and qualifications. 

Take time when speaking on the phone to the therapist to determine the fit of your personality and your goals in seeking therapy as well as the therapist's location and office hours. 

Restore your balance.  Increase your personal happiness.  Recover your strength and resilience.  Get yourself some help.

Find your song and sing it.

Lynne Azpeitia understands the stress, strains and challenges that gifted adults face in their daily lives.

Contact Lynne today at (310) 828-7121 or by e-mail for a complimentary counseling consultation by phone to discuss how psychotherapy can help you with the challenges, problems or difficulties you are facing.

Get your questions answered. 

Talk with Lynne about how counseling and psychotherapy can help you meet your challenges, solve your problems, develop your potential and thrive.  Don't delay.  

Lynne Azpeitia, MFT
310-828-7121 
3025 Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404 

Coaching, Psychotherapy & Consultation 

 Contact Lynne About Services for Gifted Adults

Coaching, Counseling & Consulting Services Also Available by Phone & Skype

Interested in reading more? Click here for books for Gifted Adults

 

Lynne Azpeitia, LMFT 
 Therapy for Gifted & Creative Adults 
 310-828-7121

Lynne@Gifted-Adults.com

PHONE & VIDEO SESSIONS AVAILABLE

LOCAL
NATIONAL
&
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When gifted clients come to therapy, they are usually unaware of how their advanced development affects the presenting problem. A therapist who can recognize the characteristics that often accompany giftedness can explain these traits and their effects to the client and this explanation, in itself, can have a profound impact on the outcome of treatment.
— Paula Prober

Call Lynne to talk with her and see if Gifted Adult Counseling is for you
310-828-7121

The gifted benefit greatly from counseling that helps them understand their process, cope with self-doubt, recognize and break free from psychological limitations, and realize their vision.
— Mary Rocamora
It seems imperative to me that if men and women are to be the best parents for their gifted children, they must be able to recognize and deal with their own issues as gifted adults.
— Marylou Kelly Streznewski
Finding a therapist who understands the differences between giftedness and psychopathology can mean the difference between having a successful therapy experience in which you feel better about your life and circumstances versus one that leaves you feeling frustrated and misunderstood.
— Lisa Erickson

To schedule an appointment or to have a free phone consultation email Lynne or call her at 310-828-7121

Restore your balance. Increase your personal happiness. Recover your strength and resilience.

Very few mental health professionals know how to adapt their counseling strategies to better meet the needs of individuals with high abilities, and untrained counselors may pathologize normal characteristics of gifted individuals, such as adaptive perfectionism and overexcitabilities.
— Sidney Moon

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted
Lynne Azpeitia and Mary Rocamora
 
Gifted individuals face many challenges. One of them may be in getting correctly identified by psychotherapists and others as gifted.   It's well known among researchers of the gifted, talented and creative that these individuals exhibit greater intensity and increased levels of emotional, imaginational, intellectual, sensual and psychomotor excitability and that this is a normal pattern of development......More

Supporting Creative Achievement: An Interview with Therapist Lynne Azpeitia 
 Douglas Eby

Actors, performers and other people in the arts usually don't seek therapy "until they're pretty desperate," psychotherapist Lynne Azpeitia admits. "They don't go to a professional until they have to go -- until they think something's really wrong with them, their relationship, their family, or somebody or something at work."  She finds that many of the people who see her "have had previous therapeutic experiences which were pretty limited due to the fact that .....More

The Mathematics of Love
A Talk with John Gottman

I look at relationships. What's different about what I do, compared with most psychologists, is that for me the relationship is the unit, rather than the person. What I focus on is a very ephemeral thing, which is what happens between people when they interact. It's not either person, it's something that happens when they're together.....More

 



  

Theory of Positive Disintegration as a Model of Personality Development For Exceptional Individuals 
 Elizabeth Mika  
 
For some time now, experts in the field of giftedness have been searching for and creating theoretical models of development, which could be applied to the gifted population.  Unfortunately, such models often suffer from artificially imposed exclusivity. As Ellen Winner writes,  “Psychology should have theories that account for the development of the atypical as well as the typical. We should not have entirely separate theories to explain learning and development in ordinary, retarded, autistic, learning-disabled and gifted children. Too often we have researchers devoted to one of these populations, with the result that we have separate explanatory accounts of each population.  Ultimately, psychological theory must account for all of the various ways in which the mind and brain develop. We need universal theories of development, but these theories must be able to incorporate special populations, whether these are special because of pathology, giftedness, or both.” (Winner, 1996, p. 313)
Kazimierz Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD) shows a great promise as such a universal theory of development proposed above (Dabrowski, 1970).  TPD is the first theory in psychology that postulates levels of personality development and methods of measuring them; it also describes and explains mechanisms of emotional development.  The theory, formulated almost a half a century ago, focuses on positive aspects of mental health and the essential role of positive values in guiding human development, and as such it can be considered a precursor of positive psychology. More....

The Dance of Anger
 
Harriet Lerner
 
Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to. Our anger may be a message that we are being hurt, that our rights are being violated, that our needs or wants are not being adequately met, or simply that something is not right. Our anger may tell us that we are not addressing an important emotional issue in our lives, or that too much of our self - our beliefs, values, desires, or ambitions - is being compromised in a relationship. Our anger may be a signal that we are doing more and giving more than we can comfortably do or give. Or.....More

Gifted Children & Adults: When Is Therapy Helpful?
Gail Post
As a gifted adult or the parent of a gifted child, you may have wondered if either you or yourchild would benefit from therapy.
You also might have questioned whether it was really necessary. Am I overreacting and being an alarmist? Will it help? And when is it worth the cost?
Although education, mental health and health care professionals have been known to misdiagnose and mislabel gifted thinking and behaviors as a sign of disturbance, it is just as important to not overlook problems when they arise.
And gifted people often possess traits that make life more complicated!
While depression, anxiety and self-defeating behaviors are universal, giftedness poses specific challenges that bring with it several risk factors for emotional distress. Gifted children and adults are not more prone to psychological problems; rather, emotional distress among gifted individuals may be precipitated, heightened or modified by these gifted traits…More…

Gifted or ADD?
 Teresa Gallagher
 
Gifted children and adults are at high risk for being identified as ADD.  Parents, if your child seems bright then please, please, PLEASE have a qualified psychologist evaluate him or her for giftedness BEFORE you accept a diagnosis of ADD and medication.  Most people, including most medical professionals, do not realize giftedness is often associated with...More

Interview with Daniel Siegel, MD 
Cynthia Levin, Psy.D.
 
Your work in the field of psychiatry really offers one of the best integrative frameworks for understanding the connections between human relationships and neurophysiological functioning. Your work on this topic is beautifully presented in your recently published book called "The Developing Mind - Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience". In your book, you discuss how interpersonal relationships affect the structure and functioning of the brain, which helps shape a person's emotional, social, and mental functioning.....More