About Gifted Therapy

Therapy is sometimes a very important step on gifted people's healing and developmental journey, and having a therapist who understands and supports your giftedness can be essential in your process. We offer one form of therapy via InterGifted, called Root Cause Therapy. For other forms of therapy, we provide some helpful information as you search for a gifted therapist who matches your needs and goals.

ROOT CAUSE THERAPY

with Fabienne Wydler

About Root Cause Therapy

Root Cause Therapy (RCT) is an emotion focused body-mind therapy that assists (gifted) people in getting to the root cause of their present reality. Our present reality is the actual story we tell ourselves about ourselves and is often unconsciously designed to support our attempts to get away from experiencing painful emotions or to at least make them manageable. But those attempts can become the basic cause of illness and disruption as they contain (and are naturally meant to cover) unresolved and unrecognised emotional underpinnings which are often rooted in a person’s childhood.

RCT focuses on helping clients to enquire about what stories they tell themselves unconsciously, to which (self-)beliefs these stories are connected, and where the stories originated. The process then guides clients to explore the possibility of letting these stories and beliefs go, or at least letting go of the emotional hold that these stories have on them.

Since trauma is not what happened to us, but rather is the internal wound that we sustain from the consequences of the event, healing from trauma is possible at any given time. RCT is a healing practice that uses regression and progression formulas which allow for a time-independent completion of unprocessed emotions, even for those times when we were not yet verbal and wouldn’t cognitively know how to name our experience or for those times in the future that we haven’t yet experienced but are already afflicted with anticipatory anxiety or dread. It’s also a method that allows the liberation from unbound trauma wounding within cultural belief systems, (inter)generational lines and past lives.

Why RCT works for gifted individuals

The ability for complexity and the drive of excitabilities sometimes lead to overthinking and over-analysing. As gifted people we might get to understand the “root cause” of our re-occurring problems, self-sabotaging behavior, or destructive beliefs quite easily and have possibly “figured it all out” even before our therapeutic environment did. We understand where it’s all coming from, how it formed and what the (often unhealthy) dynamics are or where the sabotaging toxicity lies. We then might ask ourselves, "But why do I keep getting stuck in the same situation? Why can’t I change my thought patterns and perception of how I feel and perceive the world and my environment?" The answer lies in the processing of emotions. Though we might have figured it all out in our heads, the emotions are still bound in the event and until we generate the space to release them, they keep coming back no matter how accurately we’ve analyzed and understood where our trauma is coming from. RCT is an invitation to create that space for emotional release to accompany the intellectual understanding of what happened to us and to allow those parts of our gifted selves that are emotionally stuck in the past to mature into the present.

RCT sessions with Fabienne

Our coach and assessor, Fabienne Wydler, is in the process of becoming a certified RCT and has already successfully worked with gifted and twice/multi-exceptional clients using this method. While working with her, you’ll be guided into a meditative space for you to unravel why you think, do, or feel the way you do - and discover and shift any unwanted patterns consciously, with you in the driving seat, along with her knowledge and guidance.

The first RCT Session takes 90mins and costs 200 CHF. Any subsequent session is 60 mins and costs 175 CHF.

This type of therapy is not suited to support clients in situations of extreme crisis. It also does not focus on cognitive processing and integration. If you feel that a more conversational style of gifted and twice/multi-exceptional guidance and mirroring is beneficial to you, we recommend a combination of Root Cause Therapy with one of the various forms of coachings we offer, which you can learn about here.

To schedule a RCT session with Fabienne, contact her via her website Narrative Apothecary.

GIFTED THERAPY RESOURCES

outside of our network

Directories, recommendations & advice for your search:

SENG's list of gifted-specific providers (mostly US & Canada, but some offer online sessions)
Superwell's directory of therapists and coaches for the gifted, creative and neurodivergent
Bright Insight Support Network's free referral service (mainly US & Canada)
There is a growing body of gifted-specific therapists, and googling "gifted therapist" or "therapist for gifted adults" will now turn up some very helpful options
Remember to look outside of your geographical area, as many therapists now offer online sessions throughout the world
You may want to consider different forms of therapy, including talk and somatic therapies, which can help you address issues in a holistic way
Some of the therapeutic approaches we most commonly recommend for gifted people are: Internal Family Systems, Brainspotting, Compassionate Inquiry, Somatic Experiencing, Embodied Processing and Root Cause Therapy
Article: Supporting Gifted People: Guidelines for Therapists & Coaches (and Advice for Gifted Clients), by Jennifer Harvey Sallin
Article: Bringing our Giftedness into Therapy: Struggles and Growth for Gifted Therapists & Gifted Clients, by Jennifer Harvey Sallin

It may also be helpful to review what therapy can address:

Healing from physical and psychological trauma, as well as complex trauma, gifted-specific trauma and other childhood or adult emotional wounding and fragmentation
Healing from break-ups, divorce, separation, abusive relationships or other relational rupture, and (re)learning to trust after trust has been broken
Addressing states of apathy, depression, existential depression, anger, rage, grief, anxiety, toxic shame and toxic perfectionism
Healing emotional and psychological trauma and wounding through the body (in body-based approaches)
Treating mental health issues and addictions
Intensive couples- or family-oriented work to resolve long-standing conflicts
Learning basic functional strategies for twice- or multi-exceptional challenges
Learning basic self-reflection and self-regulation skills

If you are in a phase of your development where you are ready to focus on envisioning and building toward future goals, you may find that coaching and integration work are a better fit for you, and that is something we at InterGifted provide.

GIFTED PSYCHOLOGY TRAINING

for therapists

If you are a therapist wanting to specialize in working with gifted clients, we invite you to explore our founding director Jennifer Harvey Sallin's Gifted Psychology Trainings for therapists and coaches. These trainings are 3, 6 and 12 months long, offering a special learning space and journey for you as a gifted person, and for your skill development as a therapist or coach. Topics covered include:

the differences between therapy, coaching and mentoring, and how each modality is suited for gifted clients at different stages in their self-discovery and personal development
gifted-specific presenting problems in therapy and how to work through them
mental health, twice-exceptionality and misdiagnosis in the gifted population
working with gifted-specific trauma
career, personal and spiritual development for gifted people
giftedness across the lifespan
giftedness profiling using a holistic model of intelligence
special populations
common therapeutic trajectories for gifted clients
and more...

Gifted Therapy