About PDN | Mission & Values
A network built through relationships
The Positive Disintegration Network grew out of relationships formed over more than a decade in gifted and positive disintegration communities. Through years of study and shared work, Chris Wells came to know people whose ideas and contributions Chris trusts and respects.
PDN brings that work together in one place. We create and share resources for people who want to understand Dąbrowski’s theory of positive disintegration and find language for experiences of intensity, inner conflict, and change. Alongside our own podcasts and offerings, we share the work of collaborators across the community.
Our mission
To create and share resources that help people understand intensity, inner conflict, and the existential questions that shape their lives. Our work draws on Dąbrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, scholarship, and lived experience. We connect people with ideas and the work of trusted collaborators so they can make sense of their development and live in line with their own values.
Values
Scholarship and lived experience
We value rigorous inquiry and the knowledge people develop by attending closely to their own lives. Research and personal experience offer different kinds of insight, and each can deepen and inform the other.
Relationships and trust
PDN is shaped by people learning and creating together. Trust grows through that shared work, and we protect it. We share others’ work with their permission and credit, and we recognize each collaborator’s independent voice and contributions.
A broad neurodivergent welcome
Our work centers neurodivergent experience, including giftedness, while recognizing that these ideas speak to people well beyond giftedness. We welcome people whose intensity has been misunderstood or pathologized. We make room for many experiences of sensitivity, identity, and belonging, including queer, trans, and disabled experiences that conversations about giftedness have often left out.
Agency and meaningful paths
A theory can offer language for reflection while leaving each person free to decide who they become. We hope the work shared here helps people question inherited assumptions and shape lives of their own choosing.
Care in complexity
Suffering and inner conflict deserve thoughtful, patient attention. We explore how difficult experiences can be part of development, recognizing that some crises bring growth and others simply bring pain, and that reflection works alongside professional support.
LGBTQIA+ and Two-Spirit affirmation
PDN welcomes and affirms LGBTQIA+ and Two-Spirit people, including transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people. We respect people’s identities, pronouns, and lived experiences. We recognize that gender, sexuality, neurodivergence, and disability can intersect and shape experiences of belonging, and we want people to be free to explore who they are on their own terms.
Anti-racism and ongoing learning
We strive to be anti-racist in our work and in the communities we help create. Racism shapes whose experiences are understood and whose scholarship is recognized, including who has been identified as gifted. We seek to broaden the perspectives represented in our work, examine our blind spots, and act on the feedback we receive. We consider this work ongoing.
Anti-ableism and accessibility
PDN is committed to being anti-ableist. Disability is part of human diversity, and people belong here across the full range of ability, communication, and participation. Accessibility shapes how we build this website and share our work. That’s why Chris records audio versions of their writing whenever possible. We work to remove barriers and support different access needs, and we welcome feedback as we improve.
Land acknowledgment
The Positive Disintegration Network is based in Madison, Wisconsin, in Teejop (day-JOPE), the ancestral and present-day homeland of the Ho-Chunk Nation. Ho-Chunk people have lived in this region since time immemorial. In an 1832 treaty, they were forced to cede this territory, and state and federal governments repeatedly sought to remove them from Wisconsin. Through their resistance and resilience, the Ho-Chunk Nation remains here today as a sovereign nation.
Our commitment
We make this acknowledgment with respect and with the understanding that it must be matched by action. As PDN develops, we are looking for concrete ways to learn from, credit, and support Indigenous voices and work.
How we use AI
We use AI tools in our work, and we know how fraught they are.
We also see AI as an accessibility tool. Like other assistive technology, it can lower barriers that have long kept disabled and neurodivergent people out of research and public life. The thinking behind our work, and the responsibility for it, stay with us.
The costs of AI are real. They include unresolved questions about creators’ rights and compensation, the energy and water these systems use, economic disruption, and the risk that relying on them too much weakens independent thinking and human connection. We support regulation that protects people and holds the companies building these systems accountable.
AI gets things wrong, so we check everything it produces. People make the decisions and verify the facts. When we find errors, we correct them. We’re open about when AI has been part of our process, and we keep a record of how we use it.
For us, the measure of AI is whether it supports people’s autonomy and their connection with one another.
What you will find here
PDN creates podcasts, writing, videos, and learning opportunities. We also share selected work by people Chris knows and trusts, including ways to discover learning opportunities or groups those people offer. Our starting point is a collection of resources to explore at your own pace.
Continue exploring
Find writing, research, podcasts, and videos through our Resources collection; learn about Chris’s talks and workshops on the Speaking page. We will add a subscription destination when it is confirmed.
A note about care
What we share here comes from scholarship and lived experience. It is meant to help you reflect on your own life. For therapy or crisis support, please reach out to a professional. If you need help right now, contact a crisis line or emergency services where you live. In the US, you can call or text 988.