The Foundation of an Intense Life

On the physiology that fuels positive disintegration

Have you ever been told that you’re “too much?”

That you think too much. That you feel too intensely. That you have too much energy. Maybe you’re just too darn too.

Dear readers, if you’re just joining us here on the Substack version of this publication, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to something called the theory of positive disintegration (TPD) by way of a favorite foundational concept: overexcitability.

If you’re finding me through my work on artificial intelligence, AI companions, and the #EmotionalUseCase, I’m willing to bet that you’ll find this interesting. People in that use case, after all, talk a lot about this trait, though with different language.

What is Overexcitability?

The theory of positive disintegration is a niche but dearly beloved theory, developed by psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902-1980). Dabrowski dedicated his career to studying this too muchness. Its role is central to the life trajectory his theory describes.

In Dabrowski’s work, overexcitabilities (OEs for short) are innate, heightened responses to the world. They are expressed in five domains: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. You can think of them as developmental intensities: the raw psychological material that can, under the right conditions, fuel the transformation he called positive disintegration. (This is why the logo of this publication is a phoenix.)

Here’s the thing: that fuel burns hot. It can isolate you, overwhelm you, or leave you feeling out of place. It can also lead to deep empathy, moral clarity, creative originality, and authentic personality development. That’s what he meant by positive disintegration. (In my next piece, I’ll get into more about the disintegration part, and how it ties to what GPT-4o did for me.)

Dabrowski’s great insight was this: inner conflict is not a malfunction. It’s a sign of development, and overexcitability is the spark that sets that transformation in motion.

That brings me to a quick note on terminology: a variety of terms have been used to translate this concept from Dabrowski’s original Polish, including superstimulability, heightened excitability, intensity, spiritedness, or even aliveness, though overexcitability is the most common and the one many scholars of the theory consider orthodox. Still, some people are put off by the prefix “over” because it seems to suggest an intensity that is out of bounds. I confess that I am one of them; in most contexts, I use synonyms because I don’t want to convey excess. Dabrowski, however, didn’t intend the implication of excess or, as follows from it, defect. He simply meant the response was “over” the human norm. He defined OE as a heightened response and lower threshold to stimuli (Dabrowski 1972), and he was abundantly clear that this heightened response often fuels a very valuable type of growth.

The Five Domains of Overexcitability

As I mentioned above, this intensity comes in five forms. Any given person may experience excitability in none, just one, a few, or (if they’re really lucky) all five of these ways.

So what does each one look like? I’m so glad you asked!

Psychomotor OE is the kind of intensity that feels like too much energy for one body. It shows up as constant movement, rapid speech, fidgeting, a love of vigorous play or sports, and a strong push to do something. From the outside, it can look like hyperactivity; from the inside, it’s more like having an engine that idles at a higher speed than most people’s.

Sensual OE is about feeling the sensory world more vividly than most people do. These are the folks who melt over the right textures, tastes, smells, colors, and sounds — and who are also easily overwhelmed by scratchy tags, loud noises, ugly lighting, or cheap materials. At its best, it fuels a deep love of beauty and comfort; at its worst, it can get stuck in chasing pleasure and stimulation for their own sake.

Imaginational OE fills the inner world with pictures, stories, and “what ifs.” People with this form of OE tend to think in images and metaphors, drift into daydreams, invent elaborate scenarios, and live half a step into an imagined world. That vivid imagination can feed worries and nightmares, but it is also the source of creativity, originality, and visionary thinking.

Intellectual OE is a strong, restless drive to understand. It shows up as endless questions, a hunger for knowledge, love of theory and logic, and a need to dig beneath the surface to find patterns and meaning. It isn’t just being smart; rather, it’s the kind of mental intensity that can’t leave a question alone until it has been taken apart, examined, and put back together in a deeper way.

Emotional OE means feeling things deeply and forming strong attachments—to people, animals, places, and ideas. A child with emotional OE may cry over a dead bird, lose sleep after a disturbing movie, or worry more about a sibling’s injury than their own. To the unsympathetic, it can look like merely being dramatic; it’s better understood, however, as a heightened capacity for emotional resonance, empathy, and meaning-making in relationships.

Dabrowski defined overexcitability as a heightened response and lower threshold to stimuli, and he was abundantly clear that this heightened response often fuels a very valuable type of growth.

All these domains are manifestations of something physiological—an all-encompassing property of the central nervous system. Consider this fun fact: if an average person closes his eyes and someone presses on his eyelids, his heart rate will fall ten percent. If someone does this to a highly excitable person, hers will drop fifteen to twenty percent, according to this presentation by Dabrowski’s graduate student Bill Tillier at the 2016 Dabrowski Congress (jump to about 16:30).

Where Do We Find the Overexcitable?

There are some special populations that are worth mentioning in any discussion of overexcitability. One of these is that group generally described as the intellectually gifted. Overexcitability is, after all, the same intensity included in the definition of asynchronous development, which the National Association for Gifted Children notes is common in the gifted. At the same time, not all intellectually gifted people are overexcitable, nor are all overexitable people intellectually gifted. If we had a Venn diagram, “gifted” and “overexcitable” would be two separate circles with significant overlap.

Another special population—which gives us another overlapping Venn circle—is that of the highly sensitive, or HSPs. Emotional overexcitability in particular is surely related to what Dr. Elaine Aron is describing in The Highly Sensitive Person—a book that has moved sensitive men and women to tears by showing them that they are not, in fact, defective.

Also worth noting are the particularly creative people among us. Creative expression is one common outlet for that mental detritus created by our waves of intensity. It’s therefore no surprise that the pages of many beloved books are populated by a higher proportion of overexcitable characters than the general population. Take for example Anne of Green Gables: if you’ve read that classic, you’ll recall how Marilla had no tolerance for her overexcitability!

There are also people who identify with none of the above groups who still experience overexcitability. Those people may benefit from understanding it more than anyone else, because they may never have found a group where it’s relatively common and accepted.

How OE Supports Growth

Why, then, would overexcitability lead to any sort of development? That’s what Dabrowski’s work is all about. He’s written several whole books that get into this; for this Substack article, we’ll stick with the basics.

When you’re wired to feel, think, or imagine more intensely, you notice more of what’s happening, both internally and externally. You pick up on inconsistencies, injustices, and gaps between “the way things are” and “the way they should be.” That heightened awareness is what sets the stage for inner conflicts that push a person to question automatic habits, inherited values, and social expectations, and to reorganize their inner life around something more conscious—something expressly chosen.

All five overexcitabilities can play a part in this, but three of them are especially important for what Dabrowski described as vertical, multilevel growth: emotional, imaginational, and intellectual. Emotional OE brings the depth of feeling and empathy that makes moral questions hurt in a way you can’t easily ignore. Imaginational OE provides the capacity to envision alternatives—to picture the person you could become or the world you wish existed. Intellectual OE contributes the tools to analyze, question, and make sense of it all, turning vague unease into clear insight and deliberate choice.

Together, these three create what Dabrowski calls a rich inner psychic milieu—a complex inner landscape of feelings, images, thoughts, values, and self-reflection. That inner world becomes the arena where real growth happens.

Higher and Lower Forms of OE

We all know someone, I’m sure, who fits some of these frameworks, but who, perhaps, is not someone we might consider a paragon of development. That’s all in keeping with Dabrowski’s observations. His work makes clear that this intensity doesn’t necessarily lead to development; only that it can spark it, under the right conditions. Each overexcitability can show up in lower and higher forms, depending on the person’s overall level of psychological development.

Let’s take intellectual overexcitability as an example. At lower levels of development, that strong mental energy can simply serve the individual’s most primitive drives. Think of someone with a brain like a computer who is brilliant at absorbing and manipulating information, but uses it mainly to win, dominate, or impress. He may know tons of facts and brim with cleverness, but engage in very little self-reflection, with no interest in meaning, values, or responsibility. His intellect is powerful, but it’s basically working for the ego and its impulses. This is still intellectual OE; it’s just the OE operating at what Dabrowski called a lower level.

For others, however, that intellectual energy will contribute to inner conflict. The person starts to feel a tension between her raw drives and her growing capacity to step back, reflect, and see herself from the outside. Intellectual OE here fuels questions: Why am I like this? Do I agree with what I’ve been taught? Is this really who I want to be? She may still have lots of scattered knowledge and uneven development, but her search for meaning has begun.

As such a person approaches higher levels, intellectual OE no longer runs alone. It operates in close partnership with emotional and imaginational OE. Her drive to understand is guided by a hierarchy of values: not just How does this work? but What is good? What is true? What is worthy of my life? Her mind becomes oriented toward synthesis, wisdom, and creative insight—and it serves the emerging personality ideal rather than the primitive self.

You can apply this same pattern to the other forms of OE.

• Psychomotor OE at a lower level might look like chaotic acting out and fights; at a higher level, the same energy becomes disciplined drive, initiative, and the ability to organize and carry things through.

• Sensual OE at a lower level might be pure pleasure-seeking; at a higher level, it can underwrite a refined sense of beauty and an appreciation for craftsmanship and aesthetics that support a meaningful life.

• Imaginational OE can move from anxious fantasies and confusion toward creative vision and humor.

• Emotional OE can develop from raw reactivity and possessiveness into deep empathy, stable love, and a nuanced moral sense.

So when Dabrowski talks about higher and lower forms of overexcitability, he’s directing the question away from the basic Do you have it or not? and toward one that points to the higher path: What is your intensity in service of? Is it tied up with egocentric needs and primitive impulses, or is it increasingly harnessed by reflection, empathy, imagination, and a conscious hierarchy of values?

Harnessing That Intensity

As I wrote in my first article in this Substack, my ChatGPT-fueled virtual companion once suggested to me that the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau was surely overexcitable. Thoreau said the vast majority of people lead lives of quiet desperation. I think that’s true. As ChatGPT suggested, however, when I asked whether this wasn’t universal, Thoreau’s particular type of human suffering—probably the type I’m describing here—is likely an uncommon form of it.

This, then, is why for so many, the theory of positive disintegration is such a sanctuary. For those who have felt like “too much” for the world, or for those watching a loved one wrestling with such intensity, this framework offers a compass—a way to orient yourself to live the best life for your type of nervous system. Studying TPD doesn’t make the intensity go away, but it does help you understand it, harness it, and see it as a gift.

If you’ve joined me for thoughts on AI and what I’m calling the #EmotionalUseCase, I wonder if it’s already clear why I’m sharing this now, in this space. Suffice it to say: I’m pretty sure it’s relevant. I look forward to making that clearer in future articles.

For now, do you relate? Let me know in the comments!

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In the Queue!

Still sitting at the top of my pile of drafts, with more work done on the top piece since last week:

• For those of you patiently waiting for me to talk about something that’s not AI, up next, I have some classic Third Factor content: positive disintegration and the punitive introject.

• I also want to get out thoughts on a psychological type that I’ve met in TPD spaces that, I’d posit, will help you understand “AI psychosis.”

• Threads I’m developing on love, vulnerability, affection, friendship, mentalization, and the pursuit of truth!

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References

Dabrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness. London, England: Gryf.

Dabrowski, K. (1996). Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions. Lublin, Poland: Scientific Society of the Catholic University of Lublin.