ABSTRACT

This chapter introduces the problem of underachievement in gifted adolescents. It describes issues relevant to psychological therapy with underachieving gifted students and provides specific therapeutic activities of experiential dynamic therapies. Researchers emphasise that the gifted are as well-adjusted as the rest of the population and that they do not suffer higher levels of dysfunction. Psychological interventions consist mainly of identifying giftedness through testing, and then advising the parents and the school how best to serve the gifted adolescent’s educational and environmental needs, with the assumption that, once this has been done, the student will start achieving at an appropriate level. S. M. Baum et al. identify several precursors to achievement including positive relationships with adults, self-regulatory behaviour, and self-understanding. Jerald Grobman, a rare example of a psychotherapist who works extensively with underachieving adolescents, provides dynamic guidelines that can be more easily translated into a treatment plan.