S SAGE Copout or Burnout? Counseling Strategies to Reduce Stress in Gifted Students Author(s): Leslie S. Kaplan and Kevin E. Geoffroy Source: The School Counselor, March 1993, Vol. 40, No. 4 (March 1993), pp. 247-252 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23901812 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The School Counselor JSTOR This content downloaded from 76.125.70.69 on Sun, 09 Oct 2022 16:03:11 UTC
features Copout or Burnout? Counseling Strategies to Reduce Stress in Gifted Students Leslie S. Kaplan Kevin E. Geoffroy Gifted students have many opportunities to excel in the school setting. Their excep- tional learning abilities identify these stu- dents for special acceleration and enrich- ment programs. Nevertheless, gifted students sometimes underachieve or over- extend. Whitmore (1986) commented that "the underachiever has learned to under- achieve to avoid some discomforts or per- ceived penalties for effort" (p. 67). For gifted students, causes of underachieve- ment may include value decisions about which areas to excel in, conflicts between personal desire for mastery and achieve- ment and the practical demands of a boring curriculum, and fear of failure or success. Some gifted underachievers simp- ly want relief from the pressure to excel. On the other hand, Kaplan (1983, 1990) noted that many gifted students' high and often unrealistic expectations for achieve- ment lead to superhuman striving and other self-defeating behaviors as coping mechanisms for their stress. Powell (1982) has suggested that gifted children have a high potential for "self-inflicted misery," which is the difference between their ideal of striving for perfection and the real self they see. The school counselor's role with gifted students has often been helping these in- dividuals to maximize their academic and personal potential. The school counselor, however, also has a role in helping these students develop effective strategies to reduce their desire to either underachieve or overextend. In this article we examine how self-inflicted stress can lead gifted students to invoke either copout behavior, an overt reduction in achievement, or bur- nout behavior, maintaining a faƧade of high achieving while succumbing to physical illness and emotional distress. Suggested strategies for coping with copout and burnout behaviors are offered. Leslie S. Kaplan is director of guidance for York County Schools, Yorktown, Virginia. Kevin E. Geoffroy is a professor of counselor education at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. THE SCHOOL COUNSELOR / MARCH 1993 / VOL. 40 247 This content downloaded from 76.125.70.69 on Sun, 09 Oct 2022 16:03:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
SELF-INFLICTED STRESS IN GIFTED STUDENTS Distorted Perceptions Being different can be stressful