If high IQ is viewed merely as a product of atypical brain organisation, it can have a negative connotation but the potential constellation of plus points as well as any negatives seems to be as variable and as individual as those with high IQ’s.

The emphasis on high IQ as merely a numerical value does an injustice to those individuals who are quantitatively and qualitatively different from the norm. In the same way to imply that those differences are in some way to be considered as a negative is perhaps a misrepresentation.

The “gift” of intellectual ability or creativity has long been recognised to bring with it the potential for mental health issues and other difficulties. The biological differences that underpin both that creative mind and those weaknesses are begining to be understood and certainly some constelllations of attributes and deficits are seen to coalesce to form definable disorders.

However in the case of those with high IQ what some may seek to define as disorder are in reality only those quantifiable differences that bring with them both great potential and vunerabilities.

If there is disorder it is likely to be in the failure to recognise both the inherent vunerability as well as the outstanding attributes of a person, more a failure then of nurture than of nature.

It’s about time someone seriously explored the disabilities inherent in ‘high IQ’. In a way they’re far worse to deal with than those which come along with ‘low IQ’ because those with ‘high IQ’ are invariably assumed to ‘be blessed’ and with the wherewithal to sort themselves out..

The bottom line, as you imply, is that all these measurements and labels are socially created and mediated. In a purely agrarian society where ability to master and persist in mindless, back-breaking toil for example those with the restless curiosity and sensitivities of a ‘high IQ’ could even be at significant disadvantage.

I write as one with an academically generated IQ placement at 140 who, late in life was assessed as having ‘non-verbal learning disorder’ – whatever that means (I think it’s a polite, non-stigmatizing way of saying that ‘Well, perhaps, maybe you’d have been diagnosed as having Aspergers when you were a kid’ !! In the academic and professional worlds there are MANY of us as, no doubt, you can see as you look around at your colleagues as I do mine Ever wonder why e.g. a survey last year gave that c.50% of patients admit to wanting to murder their doctors?! Seems clear to me that so many of us with ‘advanced IQ’ and paper qualifications are so woefully lacking in empathy, kindness and common sense…).

No I think Malcolm Gladwell is from New York