Understanding Anger and Grief in the Gifted Population

Presenters

• Meredith Rausch, University of Alabama - TuscaloosaFollow

First Presenter's Highest Degree Earned

PhD

Year First Presenter's Degree Was Awarded

2015

First Presenter's Field of Study

Counselor Education and Supervision

Institution Where First Presenter Received Highest Degree

University of Iowa

First Presenter's Institution

University of Alabama

First Presenter's Brief Bio and Description of Credentials for This Presentation

Meredith Rausch, PhD, NCC is a former Midwesterner who received her undergraduate degree in Public Speaking and master’s degree in Community Counseling, both from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She then earned a certificate in improvisational comedy from The Second City in Chicago. Meredith has worked extensively with Veterans, performing neuropsychological assessments, writing marriage and career programs for the military, and as an on-call crisis counselor. She obtained her PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from The University of Iowa and has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles, 3 books, 8 book chapters, a textbook, spoken professionally across the United States, and is the co-creator of the podcast Hello Again, Friend. Her list of awards includes the NBCC Servant Leadership Award, Golden Pen, Boundless Teaching, Early Tenure and Promotion, Promising Scholar, Emerging Leader, Marquis Who’s Who of 2023, Global Leaders to Watch in 2024, and College of Education Research Awards. Meredith is currently an associate professor at the University of Alabama.

Location

Percival

Document Type

Individual Presentation

Primary Strand

Mental Health

Relevance to Primary Strand

Gifted populations tend to get overlooked due to their strong abilities; however, we find in research that they tend to struggle with anger and grief. This presentation helps participants understand those factors and how they present within this specific population.

Alignment with School Improvement Plan Topics

Climate and Culture

Brief Program Description

Often, we assume our gifted and talented students are doing well because they tend to succeed within our schools. However, research points to issues with unresolved grief and anger within this population. Come find out how gifted students experience these emotions differently and how to best support them within your school environment!

Summary

Often, we assume our gifted and talented students are doing well because they tend to succeed within our schools. However, research points to issues with unresolved grief and anger within this population. We recently studied students marked as "gifted" to determine ways they experience isolation and grief, as well as anger. Because they have unique abilities, they tend to experience these emotions uniquely as well. Come find out how gifted students experience these emotions differently and how to best support them within your school environment!

Learning Objective 1

Participants will learn about the experiences of disenfranchised grief in the gifted population.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to learn how gifted students experience anger differently.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to describe ways to best support gifted students in their schools.

Start Date

6-1-2026 10:15 AM

End Date

6-1-2026 11:30 AM

Recommended Citation

Rausch, Meredith, "Understanding Anger and Grief in the Gifted Population" (2026). Southeast Conference on School Climate. 4.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/secsc/2026/2026/4

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.