Gifted Psychology Training


 

Most psychologists, therapists, coaches, psychiatrists and other helping professionals aren't taught about what giftedness is, how to recognize it in their clients, and how to support gifted clients to heal and thrive across the lifespan. They're also not taught how to recognize and nurture their own giftedness and how to integrate it into their lives and ways of working with others. We're changing that by building a dynamic field of gifted-specific psychology. 

 

 

We've been training gifted helping professionals since 2017.

Our gifted psychology training courses are offered by our founding director Jennifer Harvey Sallin. As a psychologist, coach, mentor and trainer, Jennifer has dedicated her work to serving gifted people and the professionals who support them. Her trainings are holistic, designed for both the thriving of the professionals she trains and the gifted clients they support in their practice. She has been teaching and mentoring coaches and therapists since leading Gifted Psychology 101 trainings since 2017. Learn more about Jennifer here. We currently have three ongoing trainings, which you can learn about below.

 


 

GIFTED PSYCHOLOGY 101 

This year-long professional training course brings you and a select international group of gifted professional peers into the world of gifted-specific psychology. Through a combination of extensive modules, homework, live meetings, and peer connection, you find yourself transformed as a gifted individual and as a gifted professional. This course prepares you to recognize, understand, and support your gifted clients, and provides you the connections and resources you need to thrive as a gifted-specific support professional.  

Gifted Psychology 101 for Coaches

This course is for gifted coaches. This year-long training program brings you and your gifted coaching peers into the world of gifted-specific psychology, through a combination of instruction on gifted psychology and coaching, and a personal and professional development process of you as a gifted individual and helping professional. The themes covered in the modules are:

 

    • The Benefits of and Difference Between Coaching, Mentoring + Therapy for Gifted Individuals
    • The Gifted Brain, Giftedness Identification & Levels, Twice- and Multi-Exceptionality
    • Recognizing Psychopathology & Misdiagnosis in Gifted Clients
    • Personality Development Models, including Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
    • Trauma + Trauma Healing, including Gifted-Specific Trauma
    • Family Dynamics + Relationships, including Giftedness in Families
    • Common Therapeutic Models & Therapeutic Dynamics
    • Personal + Spiritual Development
    • Career Psychology, including Common Gifted & Multipotentialite Dilemmas
    • Positive Psychology + Promoting Mental Health

 

The course combines live teaching, group discussion, personal exploration, professional learning & practice, peer interaction and if desired, peer coaching. Each monthly session includes an extensive module and preparation homework, as well as a 2-hour live teaching & group discussion facilitated by Jennifer via zoom.

The modules and live sessions allow space for your own growth and reflection as a gifted person and gifted professional, while providing you with the theoretical knowledge, practical insight, case studies, and peer feedback to start your gifted-specific practice or bring your existing practice to a new level. You'll also expand your gifted-specific professional network and leave the course with an extensive list of gifted-specific references and resources to support your clients and your practice.

Participants say that this course is a transformational journey unlike any other, both personally and professionally. You can read their feedback and experience of the course here.

We schedule our course sessions according to participant availability and time-zones. Since Jennifer is in Central Europe, courses often take place in the afternoon or evening Central European Time. Courses are generally not recorded due to the personal nature of sharing that takes place.

Our cohorts typically start once a year, in July.

Prerequisites: This course is for coaches who have had an active practice with clients for over six months (this can include coaching as part of another role, such as educational administrator, spiritual director or psychiatrist/physician). It is also for psychologists or therapists with an active practice who would like to transition away from traditional therapy toward a coaching practice.

This course costs 3,000 CHF.

If you're interested in participating in this course, please review our Course Overview Document for more details, where you will also find instructions for applying to join the course.

 


Gifted Psychology 101 for Psychologists

This course is for gifted psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, counselors, social workers who have been actively working with clients for a minimum of 6 months. This 6-month training program brings you and your gifted professional peers into the world of gifted-specific psychology, through a combination of instruction on gifted-specific development and therapeutic trajectories, and a personal and professional development process of you as a gifted individual and helping professional. The themes covered in the modules are:

Recognizing giftedness in clients
  • How to recognize and evaluate giftedness, giftedness levels, and unique giftedness profiles
  • How to bring up and address giftedness with a client
  • How to overcome resistance to the idea
  • Resources for client self-discovery inside and outside of therapy
Most common problem areas for gifted clients
  • Social troubles
  • Lack of peers
  • Lack of recognition
  • Romantic relational troubles
  • Trauma / Complex Trauma
  • Twice-exceptionality, Misdiagnoses + most common gifted/psychopathology overlaps
  • How to best guide and support + resources
Therapeutic dynamics with gifted clients
  • How to fully engage with gifted clients
  • How to handle the overexcitabilities and intensity in sessions
  • How to handle differences in giftedness levels between psychologist and client
  • How to have good boundaries and when to use self-disclosure with gifted clients
  • How to work with client when the psychologist is triggered by his/her own gifted issues
  • When to see breakdown as positive disintegration, and when to see it as "clinical"; how to best help in both cases
Therapeutic logistics
  • How therapy, coaching and mentoring can all help a gifted client, and when each is appropriate
  • Common therapeutic trajectories for clients and how to help them transition from therapy to other forms of support
  • Client drop out and how to maintain engagement
Gifted personal & career development
  • Common gifted career dilemmas and how to approach them
  • Helpful resources for gifted career exploration
  • Giftedness and creativity
  • Giftedness and spirituality/religion
  • Tools of positive psychology for gifted self-development
Understanding & working with special populations
  • Children, teens & adults
  • Elderly
  • Prison populations
  • LGBTQ+
  • Twice-exceptional clients

The course combines live teaching, group discussion, personal exploration, professional learning & practice, peer interaction and if desired, practice sessions with your fellow participants. Each monthly session includes an extensive module and preparation homework, as well as a 2-hour live teaching & group discussion facilitated by Jennifer via zoom.

The modules and live sessions allow space for your own growth and reflection as a gifted person and gifted professional, while providing you with the theoretical knowledge, practical insight, case studies, and peer feedback to start your gifted-specific practice or bring your existing practice to a new level. You'll also expand your gifted-specific professional network and leave the course with an extensive list of gifted-specific references and resources to support your clients and your practice.

Participants say that this course is a transformational journey unlike any other, both personally and professionally. You can read their feedback and experience of the course here.

We schedule our course sessions according to participant availability and time-zones. Since Jennifer is in Central Europe, courses often take place in the afternoon or evening Central European Time. Courses are generally not recorded due to the personal nature of sharing that takes place.

Our groups typically start once a year, in January.

This course costs 1,750 CHF.

If you're interested in participating in this course, please review our Course Overview Document for more details, where you will also find instructions for applying to join the course.


 

INTRODUCTION TO GIFTEDNESS PROFILING

This course is offered to gifted coaches, psychologists, and other related support professionals who are actively working with clients. Using her holistic model of giftedness as a foundation, Jennifer Harvey Sallin teaches you how to better understand your gifted clients' cognitive profiles. She also shows you how you can better help your clients understand key aspects about their giftedness, and facilitate their own self-understanding, healing and path to thriving as a gifted individual.

 

Over three months, we look together at the following themes:

 

    • why it's important to understand one's holistic gifted profile
    • estimating giftedness levels
    • understanding the six areas of intelligence (intellectual, emotional, creative, sensual, physical and existential)
    • spotting and channeling overexcitabilities
    • spotting twice-exceptionalities and supporting dual/multiple identities
    • intersectionalities/trauma/other blocks to giftedness expression and thriving
    • communicating giftedness information to your clients
    • supporting your gifted client's profile throughout the coaching/therapeutic relationship

 

This training combines teaching, pre-reading & case study preparations, small group case study presentations, and group discussion time. We meet on zoom once per month for three months, for three hours per session.

This training does not qualify or certify you to become a formal giftedness assessor or profiler. Rather, it provides you with introductory knowledge of gifted profiling which you can incorporate into and use meaningfully within your existing gifted therapy or coaching practice.

We schedule our course sessions according to participant availability and time-zones. Since Jennifer is in Central Europe, courses often take place in the afternoon or evening Central European Time. Courses are generally not recorded due to the personal nature of sharing that takes place.

Our groups typically start once a year, in Autumn.

This course costs 900 CHF.

More information coming soon on our next offering of this course.