High IQ and Therapy?

I don't want to really understand what's going on in therapy... I want to find a good therapist who can help me.

I had some problems with my exT as it was irritating for me when i was seeing all his games and manipulation and at the beginning he hoped that I wouldn't realize them, afterwards he almost stopped talking that it was not challenging enough for me

My current T doesn't play any games, instead she explains everything what I want to know and she doesn't pretend that she knows everything, we agree that she's experienced in her job and has already heard a lot while I am the expert on myself as I know myself the best... I like that she's so transparent and she likes that I learn quickly and if I don't agree with her on something, I immediately tell her and she accepts that and we look for better solution. Thus, it's definitely possible to find a good T, regardless IQ level...

I think the way for a therapist to help me is for them to explain what they are trying to do. But I am only saying it is how things work for me.
The woman used to tell me to stop thinking or that I only exist from the neck up. But she would never explain why that was bad or how it would possibly relate to why I went to see a therapist. Without knowing the connection - why would it matter to me.
She is not very well read at all.

Learning to be objective is the hard part.


'Mystery crap' pisses me off too. I warn them if they ever try to pull that on me they will get a lot of resistance. The best way a therapist can get me to comply is to explain their intentions and not to act like a know-it-all.

I don't understand what this thread is about. Is the implication that therapy is easier or works more for dumb people?

It's just that some of us have high IQ's and are in therapy.... We're assuming we face different challenges because of that fact..

I imagine my IQ is higher than my T's, but that hasn't been a problem. She is plenty smart enough and has the wisdom of experience in addition.

The one area where my IQ has really influenced my therapy is that I now pay out of pocket because I disagreed with my diagnosis. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder but in my opinion, I mostly needed therapy because I am gifted and highly sensitive.

We can use our intelligence in healthy and unhealthy ways.
We can be self-serving or giving.
When I was younger I found it easy to redirect ('manipulate' has negative connotations) therapists and psychiatrists. My therapy sessions would turn into me paying for the opportunity to entertain them for 50 minutes (and sometimes more) once a week.
Psychiatrists I dealt with were often astonished to find themselves being interviewed during a session despite their intentions to interview me. A few were telling me things their spouses did not know.
This was not the most constructive use of my time, of course.
I later learned how to better utilize services of the aforementioned professionals.

Do I take pride in my ability? Most definitely, but only if I use my abilities for good ends.

History tells us that talent, gifts and genius in the hands of immoral and irresponsible people can be downright destructive!

I'm a complex person, as he would say, so I want him to help figure me out and to identify associations and other stuff that I otherwise would not find on my own. He is super intelligent, and I know that this is important to me. I've joined Mensa before and know that I'm a smart cookie. T doesn't know this, and although he has said he thought i was intelligent, I don't think it appears that way because of the way I talk and write...

I think he is smarter than me, which is one of the initial reasons I wanted him to be my therapist.. It makes me feel safer, among other things.

Thank you for clarifying your view. I did not read all the posts except your original one and there was not much details there so I assumed the assumption was that therapy is easier for people with low IQ.

Generally speaking, what's true is what works in the long term. It's why I recommended the books by Bowlby, Winnicott, etc.,in my post way back, for Shakespeare 47. Those therapists practiced with many patients and recorded the long term results, for good or ill.
I do believe it helps to see how things work in something so important as my own therapy. You have the intelligence to do that while average folks just need to have blind faith in the T. Reading the books has helped so much to encourage me and keep focused.

I use my IQ as a defense to keep other people at a distance.

I'm a little bothered by the idea that therapy isn't as effective for people with a high IQ. What does that say about its merits? Isn't it sort of like saying so and so would make a great husband for someone who's not very bright? Or that such and such is the perfect place to live for people of moderate to low intelligence?

I don't know my IQ, and I'm not interested, but I do want to make sure than any therapist I see could effectively treat someone who does not drag her knuckles on the ground. (Okay, okay, I know I there's a lot of geography between knuckle dragging and Mensa.)

To answer the original question, yes I think that intelligence can become a hindrance to therapy when it is used as a defense against the therapy. If you use your smarts to evade your therapist's attempts to help you then you aren't likely to get very far. But if you throw emotional tantrums, criticize your therapist constantly, or expect your therapist to do everything for you then therapy might also not work that well. But I don't mean any of this on judgement. Look around these boards and you will see that many people do things that may make their own therapy difficult. But there is good reason for that. These behaviors that seem to make therapy difficult come from real places of fear and anxiety. Being open about one's emotions and trauma's is difficult--and it is especially difficult in a cutler that is largely alexithymic. But what's important in therapy is not that you just "get over" these barriers that you make, but that you talk about what function they serve. What is it that you are hiding from or trying to prevent other people from seeing. And using your intellect to understand these things can be very helpful. People who are smart are often very observational. So instead of trying to analyze everything you can try to notice what is you are doing. And you can try to look inward to appreciate your own motivations. If you can use your smarts to really look at yourself then you can make it an asset.

I came at it from a different angle. I have always had a hard time in therapy.... then I found out I have a high IQ... I read an article that suggested that people with high IQ's can be misunderstood and even misdiagnosed by those in the mental health field. We are kind of rare. But, so is a really big shoe size. There are benefits, but it ain't all good.

I think there may well be some truth to the idea that ideally a therapist should be at least similar in intelligence to you, if not greater. But I don't imagine this is a huge problem for that many people in finding effective therapy. There aren't many people out there who are just so brilliant that it's impossible to find a therapist in town who can come close to matching them. Most of us 'above-average but not mind-bogglingly brilliant' folks can find someone of similar intelligence without all that much difficulty. And as someone else mentioned, there are plenty of reasons why a therapist wouldn't be a good "match" for a certain person, so finding the right one can be a challenge for anyone. Intelligence is only one of many things to look out for.

This idea has come up on a few boards I've been on, and really, my first thought when someone says something along those lines is they are being self-flattering. My second thought is they might see therapy as some sort of manipulative game involving something like subtle mind control and have some uneasiness about this idea.

I don't see why someone with a high IQ would be misdiagnosed because of it. What about high IQ would look like a disorder? A competent therapist should easily be able to distinguish between unusual personality traits and mental disorders. And I'm skeptical about whether some of the things on that "traits of gifted adults" list are really related to intelligence. Empathy? Perfectionism? Conviction? People of high intelligence vary enormously in most of those, just like people of average or lower intelligence.

It may be junk science, but i read a lot about aspergers back when it was still a thing, and one thing was, you get smarter kids more likely to be aspie when they have two smart parents. So you take two scientific parents, neither of them "speaks" emotion, and you end up with us so-called smart kids trying to reason everything thru instead of feeling our feelings. As a kid, I could play school but i couldnt play house, seriously.

High IQ is just another excuse. I tell you this kindly, as it was kindly told to me by another poster here a few months ago. It's just one more excuse to push away therapy.

I thought my T was dumb as a box of rocks when I met her. They do that. It's one of their ploys to get you to talk more, or expand on a topic, or to talk yourself out and realize your thought process is flawed. (Albeit, well thought out.)

At a certain point, I just decided to go with it. I even pretended to be dumb as a box of rocks myself just to see where that would go at certain times. "I just don't understand. Explain what you mean." I'd make her spell out whatever she was getting at.

Whenever she asks questions, there's always an obvious answer. I rarely agree with it. I always just say, "I'm supposed to say XYZ," or "the correct response is ABC." So I give the correct answer, but know it doesn't really apply.

I've also made her explain what she's doing in the past. I can't get behind a "solution" if I don't know what she's' trying to do.

Anyway, my points to recap:

a.) Just go with it. High IQ is an excuse.
b.) Try to play along, even if it's painfully obvious where things are going. You may still get something out of it.
c.) Make T explain what they're doing so you can fully participate (or reject) the plan.

Edited to add:
I also notice my T doesn't follow my thought processes. They're too fast for her. I had that problem in school too... I hated "showing my work" because something I considered to be a "1 step process" was a 5 step process to the teacher. When your brain makes all those leaps, sometimes it's hard to slow down and explain how you got there.

T thinks this is "abstract" thinking but she's wrong. It's very logical and linear. She just doesn't follow the path with me. I file this under "whatever" and keep moving forward. No point in arguing the point.

Well, what I hear some people saying is "no person with high IQ has ever been misunderstood.. the problems you complain about don't exist... you and the writer of the article made them up.."

Is that what you meant to say?

Yeah I get that. I think I had misinterpreted the intention of the thread. At times I've felt it's a failure on my part to go for therapy because I am not smart enough to solve my own problems. So that's kind of a sensitivity of mine. I had thought you were implying the same thing, that therapy only benefits the stupid. But I wanted to make sure that's your view before debating you on the matter. Though perhaps I would have lost the debate anyways against a person with high IQ, so I'm glad that was not the intention, lol.

On of my good friends was actually a genius, very high IQ. Not everybody knows how to deal with such a person. There are therapists who actually specialize in dealing with gifted people. I think in general, people with high IQ can be challenging for therapists who have not dealt with such people before. I imagine that a truly experienced therapist can do well in those situations, mainly because they've seen so many different people that they've learned to adapt their method to suit different people. But nothing beats seeing a person who specializes in such matters and deals with very intelligent clientele everyday.

Good luck to you.

I don't see anyone saying that. They're saying, use that high IQ to make therapy work for you. Go with it.

I feel "misunderstood" all the time. I'll try once or twice to get people to follow me, but when that fails just file it under "whatever" and keep moving forward. It's rarely a hill that necessitates dying on.

Thanks Partless. I'm not actually at genius level, which is 140 and above. The information I'm finding is that anything above 120 can cause problems.. it's not like we don't ever lose debates, lol.

High IQ doesn't always translate to success and wealth.. It appears to just mean that I'm really good at taking IQ tests, and that I think differently than most.

PS When I was lamenting my "issues" last night with my husband, he actually turned to me and said, "You aren't special, you know. There are lots of people with way worse problems than yours."

Haaaaa. Thanks, babe.

He's a Mensa member too, by the way.

I look at it this way, a high IQ doesn't make me "smarter" than anyone else, it just means I'm really good at doing IQ tests (seeing patterns). I'm dumb as horse**** in everyday things.

Don't know if you're referring to me, but...'no,' and 'depends on the what you mean by problems,' respectively.

I can see how high intelligence can cause someone to be misunderstood by others, yes. People who think differently in any way are often misunderstood by others. I think people with some of the "traits of gifted adults" list would also tend to be misunderstood by people without those traits, but I don't buy that they all go hand-in-hand with high intelligence.

I cannot see how high intelligence would cause a therapist to diagnose someone with a mental disorder they don't really have, nor do I think it would make it all that hard (at least, not much harder than it already is) to find a therapist you can work with.

(Btw, I hate the 'playing dumb to get you to talk more' thing. The last thing I want to do then is talk more.)