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What is a visual thinker?

There is no doubt that although the brain is a single organ, it has different parts or functional components that all work together to form a unified whole. By having the right and left hemispheres specialized to perform different functions, the brain gets more power in less space.

As we have said, the right brain is responsible for spatial orientation, for understanding relationships of all kinds, and for certain kinds of creativity. It can evaluate and imagine things from many different angles, and it sees connections, similarities, and parallels. It makes jokes and puns. It uses images. It recognizes objects by their properties and meanings, but it does not name them. It is aware of various sensory modalities, such as taste, touch, and sound, and it registers, usually out of the conscious awareness, signals from the body’s internal organs.

Right-brained thinkers are gifted in spatial intelligence. There are many different forms of spatial intelligence. One form allows us to visualize and manipulate objects in space. With this ability, some of us can, foreksample, with ADHD will, for example, view a broken piece of equipment and examine it mentally from different angles and figure out what’s wrong. It is interesting how something that is ability in one context is a disability in another. Professor Ronald Davis has been at the forefront in bringing this reality to light. His book “In the Gift of Dyslexia”, he describes dyslexia as a right-brain condition. Seeing things from different angles can be helpful in seeing things from different perspectives. But it can make reading difficult, for example, because it is not easy to tell a “b” from a “d”, as they are mirror images of each other. Dyslexia is often tagged with ADHD, hence we see many ADHD students with learning disability. Another form of spatial intelligence involves interpersonal intelligence. If you are a right-brained thinker, your ability to view things from different perspectives allows you to view social situations from different angles. Potentially, this can be useful because it enables you to view things from another’s perspective and have empathy. Or it can enable you to view yourself from others’ perspectives, and use this to understand relationships. Sometimes this tendency to view social interactions from different angles can become overwhelming. There are so many different ways to look at a single situation that it is difficult to know which perspective is the most realistic. If your brain works this way, you might find that you can get so overloaded and anxious by all of this information when you are around other people that you complain of having “social anxiety disorder”. Sometimes, just understanding how your brain works make so much sense of your experience that you might find that you are no longer overwhelmed.

Visual thinkers are very sensitive and experience many things more acutely than others. Sounds, smells, textures, buzzing, and vibrations can be very disruptive. Emotions can also be very disruptive because you may feel them so intensely. These emotions can be your emotions or the emotions of other people. You might feel that other peoples’ feelings seem to get “inside” you, and you might, at times isolate yourself, for your own protection. Right-brained, visual thinkers are rapid-fire thinkers, whose ideas can take off in many directions. Sometimes this leads to great performance, as when quick responses are important. Sometimes it leads to impulsivity. Usually, a visual person’s mind is quite active. In some circumstances, you might find this to be enjoyable. The ideas you have can connect with each other to lead to creativity, Inventiveness and humour. You might laugh out loud at something you’ve thought, without even realizing it. But you also may find that at other times the ideas diverge so much or move so quickly that the only result is cognitive emotional chaos and disorganization.

These characteristics are aspects of intelligence. Described by Howard Gardner in his book “Frames of Mind” different kinds of intelligence are found in different people. Some of them are more prominent in left-brain thinking and some in right-brain thinking. Since the mind is an organ that naturally aims for organization and order, these forms of intelligence are used to make sense of the world. In a person with left-brain prominence, thinking of things in steps and in categories are ways to make sense of the world. Sequencing and prioritization are natural, easy, satisfying, and relatively automatic ways of thinking.

But a person with right-brain uses other aspects of intelligence to order and demystify the world. Though it does not help much with prioritizing, gathering lots of information from many different sources gives a broad orientation. Being able to scope out a situation by seeing it from different perspectives is a useful skill in daily life. It has also been adaptive human evolution. Not that long ago in our history, relatively speaking, we all lived off the land. Awareness of all that was around us helped orient us to what was required in that world and this skill often would mean the difference between life and death.

These differences in styles of thinking and different types of intelligence are highlighted in an extremely illuminating way by Thom Hartmann, who has written about ADHD from the perspective of its adaptive advantage. In his book “Attention Deficit Disorder” – A different perception, he describes the differences between the “hunter” and the “farmer”. Very briefly Thom Hartmann convincingly proposes that the farmer finds it useful to be linear, repetitive, and regulated to be successful at planting, cultivating, and harvesting. The hunter finds it advantageous to be extra sensitive, reactive, and hyper focused to be successful at stalking, hunting, and killing his prey. Very different in skill and style, each type has its use.

In our current culture, each style has its advantages and uses. However, most advantages still go to the left-brained thinkers who can stay organized despite distraction, and can do what is expected when it is expected. The creative, sensitive, impulsive person doesn’t rate highly in this world. And this sensitive intuitive, emotional, impulsive, and highly interest-motivated person does poorly at organizing a complex life.

During the adult years, especially the early adult years, most individuals are faced with many new adjustments and important choices that will shape their future in both the short and longer term. For those who suffer from ADHD syndrome, these challenges are especially difficult. As one young man with ADHD syndrome described it:

I’ve always had a hard time making choices. I switched my major five times in the three years I was in college. I keep trying things out and then I get bored and feel like something else would be better, so I switch. Finally I dropped out to try getting a job. Figured I’d go back to school after I knew better what I want. That was four years ago and since then I’ve had seven different jobs. All of them seemed OK for a while. I came in on time and worked hard to learn the job and do it right. Then I always started getting bored and coming in late and slacking off. And sometimes I’d get in trouble for being too mouthy with the boss. Once I got fired for that. The rest of the jobs I just left because I had an idea of something else that might be better. I do the same thing with everything. When I’m watching TV I have to hold the remote because I always have to keep changing channels to see what else is on. Same with girlfriends. For a while I like this one, then I see someone else who looks better. So I drop the first one and then hook up with the other one for a while, until someone else comes along. Recently though I’ve been remembering something one of my professors said: “As we grow up, life has to be succession of amputations of possibilities.” I always like to keep all my possibilities open, but I don’t know where I’ll end up when I’m forty if I keep doing this.

This young man was very bright. His tested IQ was in the very superior range. He had perfect scores for both the verbal and math portions of the SAT. His grades in college courses varied widely, usually between “A” and “F” with not many in between. He explained, “It all depended on whether I was interested in the course.” Professors in a variety of subjects often commented that his papers were “brilliant” and encouraged him to follow through with more advanced studies. This “hyper” man was also very creative: he was skilled at playing many musical instruments and had won awards for photographs he had taken. He had an appealing manner and a quick wit. But he was also very impulsive, hyperactive, and restless, both cognitively and behaviourally.

What is important for that student is to seek interventions. With a professional partner he could be committing to the following:

Prioritizing
Structuring
Planning
Organizing