Overexcitabilities
What we call “intensity” Dabrowski calls “overexcitabilities” and provides specific characteristics for each area of them. You may find some of these characteristics in your family. For me it helped to know about them and understand better about our family but still left me at a loss for what to do. The real benefit with understanding overexcitabilities though, came from engagement with the Nurtured Heart Approach and the realization that these characteristics are to be recognized and celebrated and then HOW to do just that.
Pearl Buck: “…a touch is a blow. A sound is a noise. Misfortune is tradgedy. A joy is an ecstasy. A friend is a lover. A lover is God. And failure is death.” (Piechowski, p. 23)
Forms of Overexcitabilities
Psychomotor: includes excess energy through things like fast speech, easily excited, intense activity and highly competitive. Psychomotor overexcitability is seen in things like compulsive talking, impulsivity, nervous habits and acting out.
Sensual: includes higher levels of sensory awareness and a delight in beauty, sounds, form, color and balance. These overexcitabilities are expressed as overeating, spending money and a desire for undivided attention.
Intellectual: This means an intensely active mind that we see as curiosity, concentration, reading, observation, and detail orientation. There is also a strong sense of passion for truth and problem solving; reflection in thinking involving a love of analysis and logic and at times, highly critical.
Imaginational: This includes free imaginative and fantasy play, magical thinking and a low tolerance for boredom.
Emotional: These involve intense and extremes of emotions, may involve physical expressions of emotions, capacity for strong attachments with other people and things, differentiated inner dialogue and self-judgement.
From: ‘Mellow Out’ They Say, If I Only Could: Intensities and Sensitivities of the Young and Bright. Piechowski, Michael PhD. 2006. Yunasa Books, Madison WI.