An engagingly written work about people struggling with a “jungle of thoughts, emotions, sensitivities, questions, dreams,...
Psychotherapist Prober describes her concept of a “rainforest mind” in this debut resource aimed at “excessively curious, idealistic, sensitive, [and] highly intelligent” people.
The author seeks to provide those who’ve been labeled “gifted” with the intellectual tools they need to thrive in the world. Prober transitioned to a career in mental health after a short stint as a middle school teacher, during which she was introduced to the concept of gifted children. She developed the idea of “rainforest minds” while seeking a less controversial term to describe such students. People with rainforest minds, she asserts, tend to be highly empathetic, often to the point of feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world and the suffering of others. The author presents case studies of rainforest-minded people who sought her help during her 30 years as a therapist. Many suffered abuse or neglect as children, struggled to excel in school, and found interpersonal relationships difficult to form and maintain. Prober also discusses the common occurrence of crippling anxiety, perfectionism, and the “impostor phenomenon” among those with rainforest minds. The author structures each chapter around a central theme and then provides a list of strategies, further readings, and other resources at the end. She says that not all of her potential solutions will work for everyone; she also suggests that some people consider being tested for ADHD and offers a study of a patient with both an attention deficit disorder and a rainforest mind. The obvious compassion that Prober feels for others—much like the empathy of those she counsels—prevents the text from feeling clinical, and her knowledge and experience provide a gravitas that many other self-help volumes lack. The author does show awareness of the limitations of her studies, which are mainly based on a largely homogenous patient population, but her honesty throughout makes her text feel earnest and convincing.
An engagingly written work about people struggling with a “jungle of thoughts, emotions, sensitivities, questions, dreams, worries,” among other concerns.Pub Date: June 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-71310-5
Page Count: 193
Publisher: GHF Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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