Transcript

Emma: Hello, wonderful listeners, and welcome to Positive Disintegration. I'm Emma Nicholson.

Chris: I'm Dr. Chris Wells.

Emma: So, Chris, today we're going to be talking about giftedness through a different lens than we normally do.

Chris: True. This episode is going to be interesting because we have a guest who I don't know. And that's kind of unusual. Usually, when we have guests, it's somebody that I know, and I know their work. So, I think it'll be fun today to talk with somebody we don't know, and it'll challenge us a little more, which is exciting.

Emma: And we get to learn together, which is always exciting. Yeah. A good journey to share with our listeners.

Chris: That's right.

Emma: For our listeners, our guest today is Kaitlin Smith. Kaitlin is a Boston-based scholar, facilitator, and founder of Our Wild Minds, which offers online community and programs. That helped gifted BIPOC people unleash their natural gifts.

Kaitlin is also a PhD student at Harvard in the history of science, where her research interrogates the history of mind sciences and the intersections with African American studies. Welcome to the podcast, Kaitlin.

Kaitlin: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Chris: We're excited to have you.

Kaitlin: Thank you.

Chris: I have so many questions about what you do. But you may know from listening to the podcast that we almost always start people off by asking how you discovered Dabrowski's theory, and also feel free to say anything you want about your own journey while you're telling us.

Kaitlin: Goodness. I think I'll maybe start by saying that I first encountered Dabrowski's thought when I was in graduate school about ten years ago, actually. I was encountering certain challenges in my life at the time, both as a student and in my personal life in my romantic relationship. I think through that confluence of challenges, I think I was maybe Googling some of the specific challenges I was facing and the feedback I was getting from people.

For example, I had a professor around that time tell me that I was a weirdo in front of all of the other students. And that was pretty striking. At the time, my significant other also gave me some feedback about me just making everything so existential and just generally approaching my life and showing up in our relationship in ways that were overwhelming to him.

And so those are just some examples that I, at some point, just found myself Googling those concerns and eventually landed on. Some literature related to adult giftedness and inevitably encountered the thought of Dabrowski and his theory of positive disintegration and instantly saw myself in his theory.

I knew that his work covered quite a lot of ground and has many components, but I think for whatever reason, the theory of positive disintegration especially resonated with me because I'm someone who experiences the world very intensely and feels very deeply. And also thinks deeply. And I've experienced a lot of a lot of people who know me well, will often say that I've lived many lives and kind of had a number of different turns in the road. And in many ways, I think that's a manifestation of me going through multiple disintegrations, if you will, positive disintegrations in Dabrowski's terminology, and hopefully reintegrated at a higher level or at least been able to kind of move forward from those experiences and build upon them in ways that are generative for me and hopefully for others. 

So, yeah, that was my initial encounter with Dabrowski, and I know that you were asking me to speak a bit about my gifted journey. But before I do, I don't know if you want to react to what I just said, so we can have a conversation.

Chris: I did want to mention that I love the way you said that you've lived many lives and had many turns in the road. I think that's a really lovely way of saying it, and I feel similarly. I think for those of us who've had many disintegrations, that's a perfect way of putting it.

Emma: Yeah. I feel the same.

Kaitlin: Thank you. And for me, I found it so affirming and helpful to encounter just that terminology and this insight that there are a lot of people who don't necessarily experience life with the same level of intensity, and therefore, they don't have the same proclivity toward positive disintegration. I think that that was something that I received some negative feedback for from different people in my life at various junctures.

And it was so very helpful to realize that actually this is another way to understand this is that this is a manifestation of some of my strengths and that with the right support and tools and openness to sort of being on a lifelong journey of development, it can be kind of like a superpower. So, I'm excited to reframe things in that way.

Chris: I love that. And yeah, welcome to the existential weirdo club.

Emma: Definitely.

Kaitlin: Love it.

Emma: It's nice to have this common theme of something which seems on the surface to be very weird and strange, but we continually hear this journey of people who say until I found the theory, I thought I was weird and broken, and I just kind of didn't fit and didn't make sense.

But when you look back at your life, you realize that you've gone through not only this very intense experience but this continual, like, rebirthing, like a phoenix. And it's sort of [00:06:00] nice to find out that you're not the only person who's continually phoenixing yourself out there.

Kaitlin: Phoenixing, yes, that definitely resonates. Absolutely.

Chris: I noticed that your master's degree is in social work, and I, too, have an MSW. So, I wondered, how did you get from social work to your PhD program now? Because I also think that your current intersection of mind sciences and African American studies is fascinating, and I'd love to hear more about your program and what you're doing and how you got there from social work.

Kaitlin: Yeah. Thank you for asking. And I think, in a lot of ways, that feels like the perfect entry point for me to share a few pieces of my gifted journey as well.

When I was in college, I was pretty focused on the goal of becoming a professor and going straight into a PhD program upon graduation. But in short, I ended up having I think using the terminology of positive disintegration is appropriate. And I also have often conceptualized it in terms of kind of like a spiritual awakening or dark night of the soul experience in which I kind of found myself questioning my investment in the professional path that I had settled upon at that time, which was going straight into the academy. And I felt this need to bring some of the thinking I had been doing about the social world and social systems and social identity down to the every day a little bit more because I began to feel that there were ways in which my engagement in the world of scholarship was perhaps exacerbating my feelings of alienation from other people.

I decided to press pause on doctoral study and going straight into the academy and decided to pursue training in psychotherapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy in particular, because I hoped that that might be a realm in which I might be able to marry some of those areas of interest that I had that I was cultivating in my undergraduate studies in sociology, anthropology and Black studies with the work of actually engaging with another human being and kind of drawing upon my emotional intelligence and my desire to not just engage with others in a solely intellectual manner.

So, in short, that's what eventually led me in the direction of pursuing a master's in clinical social work. And I should also say that I've had a longstanding interest in healing arts many different modalities.

I was interested in being able to tap into some of those approaches in the context of work as a therapist. And so I started my master's program in clinical social work, and one of the things that was really challenging to me about the experience that I wasn't anticipating was that I experienced quite a lot of resistance for being myself in the context of my training program.

I had a particular experience during my first year the first year of my clinical practica in which I was working as a clinical case manager in San Francisco. One of the people who was supporting me during the program, one of my advisors, who was a white professor, a white woman at the institution, which is Smith College School for Social Work.

It's a very long story, but she basically told me that she felt that I was too intellectual to be a therapist and not just that, but that I was also too intellectual to be an emotionally healthy Black woman in her estimation, and that was based entirely on her understanding of who and what an authentic Black woman is. And there's a lot to unpack in this story, and there were a lot of moving parts, but part of it was that we were talking about life at the particular agency where I was working, and I was talking about the things that I was learning and the perspectives that I had on the people I was supporting or trying to support and the people I was getting to know there.

My advisor had a really different interpretation of what life at that agency was like. And was taken aback that I didn't have more negative things to say about it and that I wasn't expressing more anger. Apparently, she thought that I should be more angry. And when I shared my perspective with her, she concluded that there was some sort of underlying deception at the heart of what I was saying to her and that my behavior was a direct result of me attempting to differentiate myself from other Black people. The way that I am, the way that I communicate, and so on couldn't possibly be legitimate that there must be some sort of underlying deception at work.

That was a watershed moment for me. And there were a number of other components as well. This particular individual was in a position of considerable authority within this institution where I was a student and also told me that if I couldn't somehow align my way of being with this idealized vision that she had of what an authentic Black woman therapist is that she wouldn't feel comfortable allowing me to graduate with the master's degree I had been working toward. And that was really challenging as well. So it was kind of like a collision of all kinds of challenging dynamics.

It was very, very difficult and isolating. And there are many years that elapsed between that situation that I just described about ten years ago, and being where I am right now in my PhD program in history of science. But what I can say is that there's an absolute connection and that feeling of just basically being told that my own self-perceptions, my sense of myself, my ability to speak of my own accord about who I am and what I know. And who I am was really this person I was interacting with during my master's program, really tried to take that away from me.

I couldn't help but think about all of the people who have experienced that especially people from minoritized populations of all kinds, be it race, gender, sexuality, and so on. I found myself, when I had that watershed moment a decade ago, it really embedded a series of questions in my mind that I think I really needed to work through at the level of just personal healing for quite a long time.

And I think, in certain ways, it's still ongoing. But at a [00:13:00] certain point, I realized that I had healed enough from that experience and some related experiences that I felt deeply inspired to translate what some of my own learnings into resources that could be useful to other people as a researcher.

So now, in my PhD program in history of science, I think, as you mentioned, I'm focusing my research on the intersections of the history of mind sciences and African American studies. Because I, I'm very interested in how a number of psychological concepts emerged in a racist historical context and also that there are all of these pervasive assumptions about various groups of people and what people's capacities are.

And also an avoidance of contending with and confronting racism including anti-Blackness and its pervasiveness around the world. [00:14:00] And I feel that these blind spots are forces that shape our knowledge or what we consider to be scientific knowledge, quote unquote. And there's a lot of unlearning that needs to happen.

And also a lot of opportunities to create new knowledge that can help us move forward in fresh directions. So I'm really excited to participate in that.

Chris: There's a lot to unpack about that issue with your supervisor, for one thing. But I love that you took that and went in the direction that you did. In the second half of what you just said, I was really fired up because it helped me realize that I really want to ask you, how can we decolonize giftedness?

I would just love to probe that a bit, maybe in our conversation today [the question], what can we do to right the wrongs of the past? To change the way that we think about this, to be more inclusive, to be less problematic on multiple levels?

Kaitlin: This is a question that I continue to chew on as well. And I hope that more insights will emerge over time. But just sort of speaking off the cuff right now, I think that one important task for people in our field is to begin by problematizing the origins of the field of gifted education. I think that examining the figures like Lewis Terman, who I think many people consider to be the godfather or the founder of the field of gifted education. I believe that he was a eugenicist, and the way that he conceptualized intelligence and giftedness was really inextricably linked with a eugenicist agenda that was not at all aligned with a worldview that included everyone as equal human beings. And that was invested in locating the brilliance and intelligence within all people. So I think that that is perhaps one point of entry that the people in our field can think with and they can use as a starting place.

Related to that, I also think that I know that a lot of work has been done in this arena, but I also think about the importance of continuing to problematize IQ as the sole measure of intelligence. I know that there's been so much important work done in this arena. I think of just as one example, the work of Howard Gardner and his multiple intelligences theory and what a crucial intervention that was in challenging the predominance of IQ and all of the ideas surrounding it.

I'm thinking about other ways in which giftedness can be decolonized. I think one other idea that's immediately coming to mind is the importance of being willing to push the edges of cultural competency. I don't know if the framework of cultural competency is often engaged in the national and cultural context in which the two of you operate, [00:17:00] but I'm using that phrase just to refer to the practice of training therapists and educators and other people to cultivate, quote-unquote, competence around the lived experiences of particular groups of people such that they can engage skillfully with members of that group. I feel that that framework can be useful, potentially, but I think that it can also be very limiting if individuals, practitioners are not prepared to have their assumptions and frameworks upended by what they're actually experiencing in relationship with another person. 

I think one way that someone might understand that experience that I had with my advisor that I was talking about is that there may have been a way in which she thought that she was somehow tapping into cultural competency about who and what Black women are or something like that. But it was woefully inadequate and deeply harmful and ultimately profoundly at odds with who I actually am [00:18:00] as a person. So I think that embracing this approach of perhaps being open to life, being open to the learnings that arise through actual interactions with other human beings, and allowing that to inform our living understanding of what it means to support others and show up for them across difference.

I think that that's an important method as well. So, going from understanding, say, a Black person or a Black client as an object of knowledge to master, and instead moving in a direction that is more relational and about engaging in a process of learning and unlearning in the moment that in which the patient or the client is the authority on their life and not that people should be turning to clients and others from minoritized populations to take on the emotional labor to teach them, quote unquote.

But I think that there's nevertheless an opportunity for people to embrace learning [00:19:00] and just openness to what they're being shown in the moment, rather than clinging to ideology and frameworks that came out of a textbook decades ago.

Chris: Yes. Thank you. I love that. And it made me think of a few things. For instance, I think we need to be more curious about cultures and people and experiences outside of our own.

And I would say that's true for anybody. It's so easy to not challenge stereotypes. Stereotypes are really problematic. This has just been something on my mind a lot lately because when I'm talking about neurodivergence, I'm constantly coming up against people's stereotypes around autism or ADHD or giftedness, right? And they think that they know what it is based on a very limited understanding. I think that that's something we're up against with gifted, especially, where people have in their minds that gifted means well, first of all, that it's synonymous with achievement. But when you think about other [00:20:00] cultures, especially even from outside of our country. I have a friend, Rosemary Cathcart, who works in New Zealand, and learning about the Maori and giftedness as a more communal experience rather than in the individual is fascinating to me.

I just wanted to affirm so much of what you said. And I think that we have a long way to go in decolonizing giftedness, but all of these things can be done. I wholeheartedly agree that it begins with uncoupling from the problematic past of the field.

Emma: Sorry, I've got to jump in because my brain is boiling with things. Kaitlin, I think you hit on something which seems to be the solution to a lot of people's problems with stereotypes and misunderstandings, as well as colonization. And that is the whole concept of trying to learn as much as you can going in, but having that [00:21:00] open mind, as you said, be prepared to learn and unlearn in the moment. That personally, for me, has been something that's been coming up a lot in my life lately, of striking that balance. It's almost a process of preparedness, but also letting go and being willing to be shift and fluid and building a foundation as well as being flexible. So I think we have to adopt that duality sort of mindset, and I try to learn as much as I can.

And yet, in the moment, I'm prepared to be flexible and unlearn and learn something new about this individual. Because I think when people like your supervisor come out with these stereotypes and these rigid boxes, which, to be honest, as a pale, freckly person from a completely different continent, even those words hurt me.

I felt pain for you hearing you recount that story. I can't even imagine what it would be like for [00:22:00] you feeling those things in that moment, but this is the importance of not saying, here's the definition, here's the box, get in it or don't get in it. Stereotype. It's about learning that any time an individual comes along that teaches us something different about that way of being, we must incorporate that into our definition of what we know. We can't continue to say there's the box and that's it, and that's all we have.

I just wanted to take this point to also shout out to Emily Strand from Potterversity Podcast because her main role is teaching cultural competency at a nursing college. It just profoundly hit me how important it is in the medical system to have that sort of learning.

Kaitlin: That's so interesting. And I appreciate you mentioning that too because I do agree that there's value in helping students who are training to work in a helping profession or, or doing [00:23:00] any kind of work with people. Helping people prepare to contend with the many possible—the phrase “life-world” is coming to mind.

I don't know if that's the phrase I want to use, but the many ways in which people may live in the world and relate to the world and their communities. And I see the value in providing students with some frameworks that they can think with and work with. And I hope that as people continue to do that work, they can continue to think more and more expansively about who people are and be open to that learning process continuously.

Chris: I really am so curious about what you're studying in the history of science and if you could even share with our listeners what you mean by “history of mind sciences.”

Kaitlin: Yeah. Let's see. Well, my department, the History of Science department, covers quite a lot of ground, and it encompasses a whole host of scientific disciplines. So my focus [00:24:00] currently is on the history of mind sciences, and that encompasses psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis.

I'm also interested in potentially doing some research around neuroscience. I'm really, really interested in how different figures across place and time have conceptualized the mind and, specifically, consciousness and intelligence.

I'm also really interested in turning to African American history as well as other fields under the umbrella of African American studies that bring Black people's experiences and knowledge and creative feats into conversation with all kinds of scholarly questions.

So, I'm really excited to do work related to some of the themes I was talking about earlier. That makes use of some of those insights. Right now [00:25:00] I'm thinking about potentially doing research on the history of intelligence that both engages thinking around Black intelligence and also ecological intelligence and the intelligence of the more than human world, if you will.

I look forward to having more to say about that in the future once I'm further along in my work on the subject. But I'm really inspired by work that's been done in the interdisciplinary arena of Black ecologies, as well as the interdisciplinary field of ecopsychology, which is a field that I've studied a bit at Pacifica Graduate Institute in particular.

So, those are some of the scholarly arenas that I anticipate engaging with.

Chris: They're fascinating. I'm envious because that just sounds exciting. Part of me misses being a student where you can just explore and all of this stuff is open. I loved being a student. Not that I'm not still a student. I'm still always learning, but there's something about that time when you're a doctoral student, and you're about to embark on your dissertation that just feels exciting, or at least that's how it was for me.

Kaitlin: Yeah, I completely relate to that. I definitely feel the excitement and I'm grateful to be able to be in graduate school again with that kind of latitude. That said, I don't know if you resonate with this or if this intersects with your experience, but something that I've been continuing to navigate as I move through my doctoral studies is being this person who's curious in a very expansive way in an environment that is often not necessarily designed for such people.

I think, in certain ways, it is conducive, maybe more conducive, to being that kind of person than some other professional environments. But I also find myself in situations in which I've found that I'm sort of being asked or expected to rein myself in. And the way that I'm thinking about that right now is that that's just part of being effective or learning to be effective in different contexts. So, I think I'll just continue to see how that develops. But I'm curious about whether that's something that you resonate with at all.

Chris: Oh, yeah, definitely. I had such a hard time first getting myself to pin down a topic and then to actually get myself to stop exploring other things and focus on that.

And I discovered the theory at that time, which totally threw me off track in terms of my degree and way extended my time in school.

So, I wonder, were you identified as a gifted kid? Is this language that you've had for yourself since childhood or something you discovered later?

Kaitlin: Yeah, I would say that this is language that I had since I was in childhood.

I believe that I was first [00:28:00] identified as gifted when I was in elementary school, and part of the backstory there was that I started school very young. I began my education in a Montessori school, and I was learning in a mixed-age context in which I could kind of choose my own adventure. And you know, pursue more challenging assignments in certain areas where I needed more of a challenge.

But things kind of shifted in my family, and I ended up needing to attend public school and be in a more conventional classroom. Once I arrived, it became evident that there was a disconnect between my chronological age and the level of instruction and the learning goals for that year.

I ended up going to a school where I then entered a mixed-age learning situation and also ultimately was accelerated a year and began participating in the talented and [00:29:00] gifted programming in my school district. So I definitely had that sense of giftedness playing some sort of role in my life, but I would say that it wasn't until much later, about ten years ago now, that I began to understand that giftedness It's not just a label that is slapped on kids at a certain age, but it's something that affects people over the lifespan and not just in the academic domain, but in every life domain.

So, yeah, I've been on a journey of grappling with those many dimensions, but, yeah, I would say that it was those two moments that giftedness kind of came onto my radar as something significant for me.

Emma: Kaitlin, can you tell us about your work with Our Wild Minds and the community that you're building there and how everything that you've learned interrelates with what you're doing now on your website.

Kaitlin: Sure. So, the business that I run is called Our Wild Minds, like you said, and through that business, I'm dedicated to [00:30:00] supporting gifted BIPOC. So Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, to get started. As I enter this first full year of the business, I'm focusing solely on Black gifted folks.

But something that I hope to do in the future is carve out space to serve other communities of color but I'm not quite there yet. Right now, the way that I'm supporting people is through a community platform, as well as an online course. So just to sort of give an overview of. What all of that entails is there are five components of the journey that I'm inviting my community members to embark upon in the community.

And I refer to this as the Wildminder Journey. The first one is focused on introspection. And I have some resources in the community that are geared toward that, and that includes a workbook that people can move through. And it's especially, I think, useful [00:31:00] for people who may be new to the concept of giftedness or thinking of themselves through that prism.

It leads people through a process that invites them to define their goals for their time in the community so they can get out of it exactly what is most relevant to them. The second node on this Wildminder Journey, and it's not meant to be a linear journey.

People are invited to enter at whatever node makes sense for their life. But the second node is focused on connection. So there, we offer twice monthly community calls right now. The cadence of those calls and the contents of the discussions will, I think, change over time. But at the time of this interview, we're meeting twice a month. And that's just an opportunity for people to make new friends and new connections of all kinds and have an opportunity to be in conversation about a particular topic. And the themes change every month. We also have some affinity group [00:32:00] spaces for people to connect around particular areas of identity such as LGBTQ folks.

It is also a place for people to connect with other people in their region or people who are in their vicinity. And then a number of other private discussion where people can connect with one another. The third node on the WildMinder journey is focused on learning.

So, there's a resource library that is comprised of crowdsourced books and other resources of interest to members. There's also a place where people can find study buddies, and people who participate in the community also receive priority access to any online courses that are offered in the context of this business.

And that includes my Black Brilliance Circle course, which I just concluded running for the first time in December of 2023. And I'm looking forward to offering that again in fall of 2024. I can say more about that later if that's of interest. And [00:33:00] then the two final nodes, if you will, on the Wildminder Journey graphic are focused on manifestation and giving back. In the manifestation arena, there's accountability and buddy matching. So, an opportunity for people to communicate their goals to the community and then link up with someone who can help them realize their goals.

There's also an area for people to network within their particular industry. And then there's also an area for people to connect with mentors who can help them who are, or other community members who can help them achieve their goals. And the final node of the Wildminder Journey is focused on giving back, and people can also participate in mentor matching if they're entering at that place so they can serve as a mentor for someone else and help people who are coming up behind them or moving alongside them.

And then finally, there's also a space that I've defined that's focused on social impact projects and [00:34:00] something I'm really excited to do with people in the community is have some quote-unquote hackathon experiences where we can as a community settle upon some particular social issues of import to a majority of us and then have a weekend where we split up into teams and devise some sort of creative response to whatever that challenge is.

So it can be like a prototype for an app or a work of art of some sort, or a vision for a program of some sort that addresses the problem and then an opportunity for people to come together and share their insights. And I'm envisioning this as a fun way for people to meet new friends and potential collaborators.

And it's also a way for us to generate actionable ideas that we can potentially decide to take up as a community or that people can take up together in some other context. But I'm really excited to bring [00:35:00] people together in these ways. It's been wonderful to see the response so far of people who have joined and I can't wait to see what the future holds.

Chris: That sounds really wonderful. And wow, a lot, too. That's a lot of work while you're a doctoral student.

Kaitlin: Thank you. I think that part of what motivates me to show up for this business that I've created is just knowing what it's taken for me to get to where I am right now, after some of the challenges I've experienced of which that really challenging experience with my advisor was just one chapter or, one component, albeit a significant one. It's really clear to me that it's taken a lot for me to get where I am, and it's really important to me to make sure that I am actively using the social and cultural capital that I'm gaining access to by being in my PhD program and beyond. It's important to me to use that in ways that can open up doors for other [00:36:00] people and help people find one another. So that fewer people have to go through things like I did all by themselves. To me, that really matters.

I don't know if you resonate with this at all, Chris, but I definitely find that when I'm working on my assignments for my courses, and right now I'm preparing for my comprehensive examinations, sometimes I can feel like I'm very much in the weeds in the day to day as I'm kind of moving through those requirements, and though I understand how it fits into the bigger picture and why it's important, there's something that is deeply nourishing and rewarding about being able to engage with other people who I'm poised to support in some sort of way that's meaningful to both of us.

It also just helps me, it helps me stay on track and also just makes it really clear what all of this is for or why am I investing this amount of time in getting a PhD? And for me, part of the reason is to help people [00:37:00] befriend their wild minds and operationalize their natural gifts.

So, I see why it sounds like a lot. And I think it is, but for me, it's a labor of love. And I feel like it's central to the work that I ought to be doing right now.

Chris: It does resonate. I've felt so similarly, just from a different perspective. Pursuing my education after having basically a whole career of being mentally ill and a patient. I knew the whole time I was getting my PhD that I wanted to somehow give back and help other people through their suffering.

And like you said, to take advantage of the cultural capital or the privilege that I have to make that happen for people who don't have it. And I still feel so strongly that that's part of my mission and what I have to do. But I think that it's tough while you are in the weeds and the details of courses, and it does start to feel disconnected from, well, what am I going to do [00:38:00] with this?

You feel driven to take action. At least I did, maybe not everybody does, but you clearly do. I think it's so important to have this kind of perspective of, how can I help? How can I lift other people up? It's not all about us and our success or the things that we can achieve as individuals.

The only way that we can really create change is to lift other people up with us and bring them along on these journeys.

Kaitlin: Yeah. I love what you said there, that resonates strongly with me. I definitely believe in this concept of lifting while you climb. And even though I feel like I do have a lot on my plate day to day, it feels like I need to actively lift while I climb.

It enriches my life so much to engage with people in this way. And I think that it will also enhance my research, even though I'm not at this time anyway, doing empirical research on the experiences of [00:39:00] gifted people, for example. But I think that just connecting with people from all over the world and hearing about their experiences being gifted in their context, it's amazing.

And I feel we're very fortunate despite all of the really challenging and perplexing things about living in this day and age, I nevertheless feel that we're very fortunate to be able to connect across these great distances. Especially as members of like minoritized communities. Gifted people are a minoritized community, I think, in some sense. So I feel like, you know what, I'm going to take advantage of this because this is a pretty incredible opportunity being alive right now.

Emma: Kaitlin, being that you've been through your phoenixing and you said you found it really important to reach out to people and help them understand that they're not alone. I was curious as to whether or not the theory of positive disintegration has any particular resonance [00:40:00] with the BIPOC gifted community. If there's anything that you find is particularly useful or applicable or how it's been useful in informing your approach to building Our Wild Minds.

Kaitlin: Oh, that's a great question. I definitely do remember discussing the theory of positive disintegration in the context of the Black Brilliance Circle program that I ran last year. Admittedly, I don't remember anyone indicating that it felt unhelpful recollection was that the people who reacted to it in the conversation were people resonated with it, and it harmonized with people's experiences.

That said, I think that I don't know if this is what you may be getting at, but something that I think about when I think about Black people's experiences of giftedness is that perhaps an additional [00:41:00] layer or force or element that could be incorporated into the model of positive disintegration could be some sort of element that speaks to Well, I'm struggling to find the term that I'm looking for in my head, but I remember in listening to one of one of your previous episodes, I think one of you spoke of positive maladjustment.

Which I thought was such a helpful term. And I'm familiar with Martin Luther King's notion of creative maladjustment. And I guess I mentioned all of that because I think that one of the themes that I've noticed is that if someone is experiencing a kind of disintegration, and it's connected to themes of oppression, like social oppression, racism, and so on.

Though there's the potential for reintegration, so to speak, at a higher level of consciousness and conscious awareness, one still has to operate within the world we have with all of its attendant [00:42:00] limitations and violence and so on. At least for me, something that has felt really important for me is to not just think about I guess what it means for me to experience personal evolution. But also, what are the ways in which one can sort of contribute to changing? The world or, or change changing some of these forces and dynamics such that our authentic selves can emerge more fully as say, Black gifted people, or, you know, people of some other community.

We've definitely talked about the theory of positive disintegration in my program. I do recall though, there has been a lot of interest in kind of layering various ideas on top of each other and bringing them into dialogue so that we can also contend maybe more directly than Dabrowski does with certain dynamics of the social world and like political structures as well. [00:43:00] I don't know if that answers your question.

Emma: Yes, it does. And I was totally thinking of positive maladjustment. And I'm like, when you said I'm thinking of the term, Oh, there it is. I'm like, yes, that was the one. Yeah. 

Also, we've talked about gender and sexuality, but when we're talking about minorities, the concept of alleviating yourself of some of the socialization and pursuing living more authentically and finding out, you know, what is more like you and what is less like you and trying to assure yourself of some of those stereotypes. And as you alluded to trying to change what's around us and be present for each other so that we can work together to make the world a little bit better.

Kaitlin: Definitely. One thing that I haven't mentioned already in this conversation, but that I would like to share is that I think earlier when we were talking [00:44:00] about what it might look like to decolonize giftedness, something that comes to mind for me that, that speaks to what you were just saying, Emma, is just the importance of just being willing to look at racism.

And definitely racism in the context of, say, the gifted field and the history of psychology, but also just racism, period, like racism as a pervasive phenomenon in the world. And I think that what you were just speaking to Emma about the challenges inherent in knowing that one is in some sense bound within certain structures, like certain manifestations of racism, for example.

While also feeling an inner pull toward pushing against those bounds and enacting broadened possibilities. That's really, really challenging and something that I've found and, and that some other people I've worked with have found is that there are, I think, currently some folks who do work in the [00:45:00] gifted industry who have maybe not been so keen on engaging with those particular tensions and have, in so doing, just not really been willing to see what people's real experiences are of the world.

I had an unfortunate experience at one point with a professional in the gifted field who I think struggled to grapple with experiences of racism that have been really central to my life and that have had a profound impact on my worldview. And that person interpreted what I had to share as evidence of, I don't think they used this term, but one way I would summarize it is just an excessive descent into existential rumination that was somehow overdone or unproductive. I don't know how widespread that particular interpretation is within our field, but I do think [00:46:00] that related to this question of creative maladjustment, positive maladjustment, and what it looks like to live inside of the world that we have right now.

It feels crucial to me that people who work in the gifted field can do whatever they can to just lean into learning more about racism and the ways in which it impacts them and impacts other people around them and also ways in which one is complicit in these systems. And I think that just leaning into that learning can be really powerful and can also begin to inform the work that people are doing whether or not they're working with populations of color.

I think that there's a real opportunity for growth for our field there.

Chris: I agree a hundred percent with you on that. And thank you for articulating that so beautifully while you were saying it reminded me, when I started investigating how to be anti-racist, how to try and [00:47:00] actively work to change that to be more open to being aware of it, to spotting it in myself, even more than others, it just started to hit me that we need to be anti-ableist too, you know, like for me, like so much of my work has been more around disability, I've identified as disabled for so long.

My point was from that book How to Be an Antiracist. I wrote down some quotes, and I just pulled one up. “The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term racist into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite, to freeze us into inaction.”

And I think that's what happens. They feel ashamed, and they're so afraid to face [00:48:00] this in themselves that it freezes them into inaction. And what you said is so important because we can't make progress until we can name and own, and move past these issues. As long as we're afraid to address them head on, we're never going to make progress.

Kaitlin: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I love that you mentioned that quotation from the Kendi book. That's such a great resource.

Chris: It was so interesting to me because I just kept coming back to how similar it is for ableism. People don't want to address that or face it either, or even take it seriously as a real issue. And so, as long as people can't even see that prejudice against disability exists, how can that get better?

Kaitlin: Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more.

Chris: Well, and there's another quote, if you don't mind, on my little card here: “Like fighting an addiction, being an antiracist requires persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination.”

A lot of this, it just makes so much sense, and yet people are so resistant to doing that kind of inner work.

Kaitlin: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: But not our listeners. Our listeners do care about the inner work and that's why they're listening.

Emma: This is a persistent theme that we get on the podcast is that, you know, any type of growth Requires levels of self-reflection, and often people aren't willing to go to that depth of confrontation with themselves.

I think, you know, particularly now when we've got people throwing out the word woke and snowflake, and in a derogatory term, it's like people only want to think about racism or ableism, like in the big ghastly things. Oh, well, I'm not putting on a white pointy [00:50:00] pillowcase over my head. So, therefore, I can't be a racist.

And on the other hand, I don't want to be a precious snowflake. And it's just an excuse to not look at yourself. Because Kaitlin, when you're talking about that woman, that supervisor, who said those things to you, I betcha she's long fuckin' forgotten about that, because she probably didn't consider it a big enough thing to be concerned about, but had she done that step of self-reflection, she might've realized how hurtful it was to say, you're too this, you're too that, the things that it's those little tiny microaggressions of you're too weird, you're too fat, you're too tall. It's not like people are unaware of these things about themselves, but by continually like doing that and not stopping and going, well, what's the harm that this is causing?

Kaitlin: I couldn't agree more about what you were just saying about some of the [00:51:00] experiences I had with that supervisor and I think prior to that, you were also talking about the weaponization of the term woke and snowflake that I'm a hundred percent with you, that's been so frustrating to me and just the way that it's become a convenient slur and a way to sort of swat someone away and discredit their legitimate concerns and lived experiences.

Emma: It's another way of making nice, like when did niceness and inclusivity, inclusivity and empathy become dirty things, dirty traits to have?

Kaitlin: Yeah. I find it astounding.

Chris: Same. It's tough to be an American right now, and it's, we're in a new election year, so it's only going to get worse.

Kaitlin: Oh boy. Okay. I'm not ready. Yeah.

Chris: Me neither. So, I wanted to give you an opportunity before we end to talk about the Black Brilliance Circle.

If you have more to say [00:52:00] about it, or you'd like to describe it because I would love to hear more.

Kaitlin: Yeah. Thank you for asking. Let's see. Well, it's currently a six-month journey in which we meet twice a month and it's an opportunity for gifted Black adults to forge deeper community with each other and also take a deep dive into a combination of different materials, ranging from material drawn from gifted psychology and African American history and other materials drawn from the diaspora.

And various other fields, including Africana philosophy, Black critical thought, and also, a number of different traditions within the Black art world from around the world. The experience is designed to help people sort of engage with the interior experience, [00:53:00] their interior experience of being a gifted Black adult in conversation with these various resources.

Also, the various forces that that shape our experiences in the world as gifted Black people and then there are also opportunities for us to explore what it means to work with inspiration and So we also spend some time kind of deconstructing examples of other gifted Black adults in the world who inspire us to explore what is working for them and what their journeys have been.

What are some of the hurdles that they've had to overcome and what kind of learnings can we derive from that? And then there's also there are opportunities throughout for people to kind of think deeply about what their powerful vision is and how do they want to steer their own development and become a kind of ancestor of the future and defining what kind of support might they need to realize that goal?

[00:54:00] So, in broad strokes, those are some of the themes of the course, and it covers a lot of material. But that was the approach that I took for the first iteration. I'm looking forward to making some adjustments prior to the relaunch of the course in fall 2024. So I'll have more details to share about that over the coming months.

Half of the participants were from the U S and the other half were from other parts of the world. It was such a rich experience for me as a facilitator. So, I can't wait to dive back into that with people very soon.

Chris: That sounds great. Wow. It sounds so rich.

Kaitlin: Thank you. One other thing that I'll say that I sort of alluded to is that there were people who participated from all over the world. So we had a number of people who either live in Africa or have some sort of immediate personal connection to the continent. Like they've lived there for a period of time in their lives, like a significant period [00:55:00] of time and have family there. And then other people who don't have that background at all like who are African Americans, for example. And it was incredibly powerful to connect around this, in some ways, shared Black experience, but also become aware of the many manifestations of Black gifted experience.

I think that there was just so much learning there. Noticing the different ways that racism plays out in different parts of the world and is exported from one place to another. And the different ways that Black folks in these different locations have envisioned what's possible and not possible. It was just so fascinating. And I learned so much from the conversations that ensued. I'm so excited to keep exploring with that group and with the community that's taking shape.

Chris: That sounds amazing.

Kaitlin: Thank you so much.

Chris: This has been really great. It's funny to me because, like I said at the beginning, we didn't know each other, but we had you on. There's something really incredible about being able to have a conversation like this, get to know you a little better. And I'm grateful that you took the chance to talk with us considering that we didn't have a relationship beforehand. I'm grateful for everybody who does take a chance to talk with us.

Thanks so much for sharing all of this with us. It's really special.

Kaitlin: Oh, thank you. And thank you so much for having me. I've loved chatting with both of you. This has been such a special experience and it's wonderful to have this chance to engage with your audience as well and share what I'm up to in case they want to get involved or know someone who might like to get involved.

Chris: Yes. I hope they will.

Emma: Yes. Thanks so much, Kaitlin, for being on. It's been a great chance for us to, funnily enough, unlearn and learn about each other at the same time. And I really appreciate you coming on.

Kaitlin: Oh, no problem. This has been wonderful.

Emma: And thank you to you too, Chris. It's always a pleasure.

Chris: Thank you. It is always a pleasure.

Emma: And thank you, listeners. We really appreciate you being with us and hope you learn as much as we did.