Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Curriculum and Instruction

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This autoethnographic study explores the researcher’s lived experience of childhood trauma as a twice exceptional individual with an arts-based autoethnography research design, specifically in the form of graphic narrative. Grounded in Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD), this study examines how emotional and sensory intensity, overexcitability (OE), and psychological disintegration intersect with twice-exceptional (2e) identity development and identity authenticity potential. Data sources include personal artifacts from childhood and adulthood—journals, letters, graphic narrative, documents, and photographs—alongside reflective writings and completed graphic narrative pages. Using descriptive coding and TPD’s developmental levels as analytic lenses, the study interprets the processes of disintegration and reintegration over time. Results indicate that visual storytelling enabled deeper engagement with trauma and offered an embodied pathway toward integration. The creative process transformed disintegration into self-understanding, revealing how creative expression can channel emotional intensity into reconstruction of the self. The results of this study contribute to the field of gifted education, illuminating how autoethno-graphic narratives can serve as both research method and therapeutic pedagogy, supporting 2e learners, specifically those with OEs, in processing trauma and developing authenticity identity.

Date

11-13-2025

Committee Chair

Sulentic Dowell, Margaret Mary

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