Understanding and Appreciating Introverted Advantages
While the general population is made up of approximately 75 percent extroverts and 25 percent introverts, the membership of Mensa is the nearly the reverse: approximately 65 percent introverts and 35 percent extroverts. This Conversation will help listeners both within and outside Mensa understand and appreciate the wonderful gifts that introverts have to offer and will help to to make sense of the frequently confusing and uneasy feelings that introverts experience.
Dr. Marti Olsen Laney
Dr. Marti Olsen Laney is a psychotherapist. She earned her doctorate in neuroscience psychoanalysis and is an author, teacher and much sought-after public speaker on subjects close to her heart, such as the physiology underlying introverted and extraverted temperaments. She is one of America's foremost authorities on introversion; she speaks and leads workshops on the topic in the United States and Canada, and has written three books on the subject: The Introvert Advantage; The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child; and The Introvert and Extrovert in Love.
Dr. Olsen is in private practice and presented on the subject of introversion at the 2011 American Mensa Annual Gathering in Portland, Ore. She is a practicing introvert.
Dr. John Sheehan
Dr. John Sheehan is a Life Member of Mensa and most recently served as a Mensa Foundation Trustee. Prior to joining the Foundation board, he served as American Mensa's Development Officer from 2005 until 2009. With undergraduate and advanced degrees in philosophy and communication, he is a certified clinical hypnotist and manages a multi-state professional practice with Elizabeth Early Sheehan, his wife and a fellow practitioner.
An active volunteer, he is appointed by district court judges in Texas to serve as a guardian ad litem representing children who are victims of abuse and neglect as their cases move through the courts.