blogs Over begaafdheid, loopbaan en persoonlijke ontwikkeling

Integratie als hoogste leerdoel van hoogbegaafden
Nederlandstalig Dirk Anton van Mulligen Nederlandstalig Dirk Anton van Mulligen

Integratie als hoogste leerdoel van hoogbegaafden

Er zijn mensen voor wie leren een middel is. Én er zijn mensen voor wie leren een bestaansvorm is. A way of life.

Hoogbegaafden behoren doorgaans tot de tweede categorie. Voor hen is wat ze creëren een informerende stepping stone. Feedback voor de ontwikkeling van hun Zelf. Voor hen houdt binnen de Taxonomie van Bloom leren dan ook niet op bij Creatie, maar vraagt het om Integratie als 7e niveau.

Hoe dat zit en hoe je 'Integratie' handen en voeten kunt geven in het onderwijs, maar zeker ook je dagelijks leven als hoogbegaafde volwassene, is het onderwerp van deze blog.

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The Dark Face Of Empathy And How To Lighten It Up
English Dirk Anton van Mulligen English Dirk Anton van Mulligen

The Dark Face Of Empathy And How To Lighten It Up

Empathy has exceptional PR. In leadership, coaching, HR and cultural work, it is often treated as a moral trump card: more empathy means better people, better organizations, better everything! But that equation is incomplete.

In its healthy form, empathy helps us understand another person’s inner reality without losing our own center. In its unhealthy form, it becomes emotional fusion, moral theater, or self-image maintenance. A blog about the Dark Face of Empathy and how to lighten it up.

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Why Maslow’s Pyramid Often Works in Reverse for the Gifted
English Dirk Anton van Mulligen English Dirk Anton van Mulligen

Why Maslow’s Pyramid Often Works in Reverse for the Gifted

Psychologist Abraham Maslow famously described human motivation as a hiërachy of needs, later to be simplified into a pyramid by others: first we take care of our physical needs, then safety, belonging, and status and only then do we focus on meaning, purpose, and self-actualization. For many gifted people, especially the highly and exceptionally gifted, this order does not match their lived reality. They often start at the top and seem to live by a reversed piramid; a way of life skillfully pushed to its extreme by the Wandering Mathematician Paul Erdős.

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The Four Roles that support Gifted Development
Dirk Anton van Mulligen Dirk Anton van Mulligen

The Four Roles that support Gifted Development

Working with the gifted can be many things but dull certainly isn’t one of them. They differ so much from each other with widely different biographies, while at the same time sharing certain giftedness specifics, that no two developmental trajectories are the same. The work is complex and I regularly find myself in different roles in relation to the client. This depends heavily on where the client is at a certain stage in the process and sometimes even within one sitting.

In this blog I delve into the roles I see as relevant when supporting gifted individuals in actively shaping their lives and careers and why as a practitioner it is useful to be aware of them.

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Do You Have to Be Gifted to Work with the Gifted?
English Dirk Anton van Mulligen English Dirk Anton van Mulligen

Do You Have to Be Gifted to Work with the Gifted?

Working with gifted and highly gifted individuals is both a privilege and a challenge. Their minds move fast, their questions run deep, their intensity overwhelms and their sensitivity often extends into territories that many professionals have never had to navigate. And that makes working with these remarkable people a delicate and responsible job, especially when clients have had more than their share of negative experiences in life. But does that mean you have to be gifted yourself to effectively work with them?

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A Shift in my Writing And What’s to Come
Dirk Anton van Mulligen Dirk Anton van Mulligen

A Shift in my Writing And What’s to Come

From long-reads to bite-sized building blocks for two upcoming books, from Dutch to English: this is the shift that this page will see.

I’m currently working on two books: one on The Philosophy of Your Evolving Self and one on the Gifted Hunter. This has my writing priority and so the blog page will shift accordingly.

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