Therapy for Gifted Adults in NYC
“It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning.”
If You’ve Always Felt Different, You’re Not Alone
Giftedness is often misunderstood—both by the world and by those who live with it. Why? Because it’s not just about intelligence. It’s about complexity and divergent ways of thinking. You may experience thoughts that move rapidly, emotions that carry an intensity, and a deep sense of meaning-seeking that makes much of the world feel overly simplistic or out of sync. You may have spent your life sensing that you were different, without having the language for why.
Therapy for Gifted Adults
Work with a Therapist Who Understands Giftedness
I do this work because it feels like breathing. Before I became a therapist, I carried an enormous amount of untapped energy, an inner restlessness I didn’t yet understand. Practicing therapy became the outlet that both regulates and stimulates my mind in the ways I’ve always needed. Only later did I realize that this hunger for depth, meaning, and complexity was part of my neurodivergence and an expression of my giftedness.
My own recognition of being twice-exceptional (2e) came after a severe period of existential depression. It was a free fall through the wallless halls of my own abstract thinking— my mental infrastructure dissolved like quicksand, my house of cards had fallen once again. I found myself asking with more despair than ever, What’s the point of it all? And the absolute torment of this particular bout, led me to eventually googling “emotional intelligence related to depression.” That search led me to the book, Searching for Meaning: Bright Minds, Idealism, Disillusionment, and Hope and to SENG, where I finally discovered the truth about my differences.
For the first time, I felt truly, accurately, seen. I began exploring the concept of giftedness in earnest, reading The Gifted Adult and finding validation for the traits that had once made me feel alien: my intensity, my idealism, my relentless need to make meaning and so much more. I saw how often those traits had been pathologized, even in my own therapy.
Working with a gifted counselor was transformative. She didn’t label my sensitivities or existential questions as “too much.” She saw them as the very things that made me who I am. That affirmation launched me into my own “positive disintegration”—a messy, clarifying process that became my personal gym for existential growth. I learned that life’s task isn’t to escape the weight of being gifted, but to choose how I carry it—with compassion, creativity, levity, connection, play, and love.
While I don’t pretend to have all of life’s riddles solved, I’ve spent over 10,000 hours working with adults—many of them gifted or twice-exceptional—alongside an immeasurable amount of time working on myself. That combination has helped me form a grounded, precise approach to supporting gifted individuals. My aim is simple: to meet you exactly where you are, to speak your language, and to help lift some of the existential heaviness you’ve been carrying, so that you can experience your life, your depth, and your mind with more lightness, self-compassion, and awe.
You deserve to feel seen, in all of your resplendent fractals
What Does It Mean to Be Gifted?
You may have grown up without the gifted label, or perhaps it was applied early and then forgotten. Either way, giftedness doesn’t disappear in adulthood—it simply becomes harder to name and live with. Many gifted adults spend years feeling out of sync with their peers, frustrated by systems that don’t mirror their complexity, and longing for spaces where they don’t have to “dumb down” their thoughts or emotions just to feel understood. The loneliness can accumulate, leaving individuals with hopelessness and a pervasive depression.
Giftedness is often reduced to achievement, high IQ scores, or academic acceleration. But for many gifted adults, the experience is far more nuanced and often invisible from the outside. Giftedness can mean thinking in layers, feeling in intensities, and sensing patterns or meaning where others don’t. It often comes with heightened sensitivity, an insatiable curiosity, and a sense of existential depth that can feel isolating in a world that prioritizes simplicity, and surface-level engagement.
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”
Common Struggles Gifted Adults Face
Gifted adults often carry invisible burdens. While others may see competence, creativity, or success, they don’t always see the cost of holding that much complexity, sensitivity, and intensity. Without spaces that acknowledge the internal experience of giftedness, many gifted individuals feel isolated, overwhelmed, or chronically misunderstood, even in therapy.
You might resonate with some of the following experiences:
Chronic overthinking and mental exhaustion
Existential questioning and a need for deeper meaning
Emotional intensity or reactivity that feels hard to regulate
Perfectionism and self-criticism tied to high internal standards
Imposter syndrome or persistent self-doubt
Difficulty connecting with peers on a genuine or intellectual level
Feeling out of sync in social, academic, or work environments
Masking or “toning down” your true thoughts or emotions to fit in
A lifelong sense of being too much—too sensitive, too intense, too curious
These struggles are not signs of failure or dysfunction. They are often the natural result of moving through a world that hasn’t been designed for the gifted experience.
How Therapy Can Help Gifted Adults
One of the most healing parts of therapy that’s attuned to giftedness, whether you’re navigating disillusionment, loneliness, or simply feeling misunderstood, is finally being met by a like mind. Someone who not only sees and speaks your language, but can help you move forward in the very places you’ve been stuck. There’s something profoundly relieving about working with someone who’s traveled a similar terrain and can help you move forward, where no one else has even been able to meet you.
Gifted-affirming therapy helps you feel safe to bring all of yourself—your curiosity, depth, intensity, and contradictions into the room. Together, we focus on turning insight into integration so you can live with more ease, connection, and fulfillment.
In therapy, we can explore:
Emotional intensity and sensitivity: Learning to regulate your nervous system while honoring your depth of feeling and empathy.
Perfectionism and self-criticism: Loosening the grip of high internal standards rooted in fear of failure or rejection.
Existential loneliness and meaning: Finding belonging and purpose when your mind often lives several layers deeper than those around you.
Overthinking and analysis paralysis: Shifting from rumination to clarity so your intellect becomes a tool for grounded decision-making rather than anxiety.
Twice-exceptionality (2e) challenges: Integrating giftedness with ADHD, autism, or other forms of neurodivergence so your brilliance and sensitivity can coexist peacefully.
Authentic self-expression: Learning to trust your intuition, creativity, and emotional truth, even when they don’t fit conventional paths.
Find pragmatic paths to connection: With a therapist who truly gets it, explore grounded ways to find belonging without shrinking your depth.
Explore your existential and abstract mind: Engage in expansive, abstract thinking without needing to slow down or simplify. Therapy becomes a space to play, question, and create meaning with someone who can truly keep up.