Click here to view Maggie Brown's Presentation 

Let’s start talking about what happens to gifted children when they (we) are no longer children. It’s a long-overdue conversation. As a psychotherapist, I have worked with hundreds of gifted adults here in New Zealand and around the world. In this presentation, I share insights from my clinical work and my research with gifted adults. In this short but important conversation, I hope to dispel some myths and raise new awareness about the reality of living as a gifted adult in 2020. And I’ll give five key reasons why we need to continue to talk about giftedness beyond childhood. This conversation will be of interest to parents, educators, clinicians and gifted people of all ages, and to those around us who often wonder. Together, let’s open our minds and find the language to talk about giftedness across the lifespan.
Maggie Brown is a psychotherapist, counsellor and psychology researcher with a special interest in gifted adults. She was worked for over 30 years with neuro-atypical adults, and with their families. Maggie’s passion is to depathologize the gifted experience by increasing awareness. Complexity, intensity and insatiable curiosity are all too often seen as problems in adult contexts. Misdiagnosis is a very real risk. Maggie works internationally and here in New Zealand to change that. A gifted woman herself, she has raised a gifted son in New Zealand. She knows what it’s like to be a parent and a gifted adult experiences that often go hand in hand.