Individuals are born with unique creative potentiate and are responsible for their own personal development throughout their life. The creative self-realization of the individual is manifested in different stages related to self-identification, self-identity, self-esteem, self-respect, creative characteristics, conscious strategies for self-regulating behaviour, a variety of non-verbal and verbal means of communications, styles of interacting with other people, characteristics of learning, transformation of negative experiences into creative attitudes, career development and mastering of innovations from the environment, and creating inventions and products.
The age periodization of creative self-realization of the individual consists of nine stages:
-
Pre-natal stage (from conception to birth). During this period the individual is in protected environment provided by the womb of the mother.
-
Stage of creative longing (from new-born to 1 year and 7 months). Individual’s self-regulatory mechanisms are strengthened in order to be more self-assertive. This stage is characterized by enrichment of non-verbal communication. The individual decides alone at what time and how to engage in social communication and activities.
-
Creative verbal stage (from 1 year and 7 months to 2 years and 7 months). This stage is characterized by a variety of non-verbal and verbal means of communication. Casual learning stimulates the creative verbal system of the individual.
-
Stage of creative and innovative attitudes (from 2 years and 7 months to 6 years). Individual's attitudes towards making inventions, towards creating products are formed. The individual uses his/her creative and innovative resources in accordance with the adequate reinforcement of the environment and his/her strong longing to create.
-
Stage of creative and innovative self-determination (from 6 years to 11 years). The individual is in a situation of focusing on himself/herself. He/she defends his/her positions by distinguishing himself/herself in self-esteem and self-esteem from self-ideal. The creative and innovative conscious models of self-realization have real parameters in specific products created during the game, learning activity, art, technique, etc.
-
Stage of choice of creative self-realization (from 11 years to 19 years). The individual consciously and consistently chooses to self-realize creatively. There are various styles of learning and interaction with other individuals, such as intellectual reflexion, artistic reflexivity, individual's personal reflexion that structure his/her conscious creative self-realization.
-
Inspired creative self-realization stage (from 19 years to 24 years). The individual that is inspired for creativity and innovation experiences happiness. He/she creates an independent and responsive environment. He/she finds sense in the noble and careful attitude towards others.
-
Stage of conscious intentional creative self-realization (from 24 years to 33 years). The conscious creative self-realization of the individual during this period is manifested in his/her structured value system. I-real, I-ideal and I-axiomatic are differentiated. The individual works consciously through internal targeting, an expanded range of non-verbal and verbal means of communication, learning, and career development. The individual uses different styles of interaction with other people, of learning as a necessary reinforcement for creative self-realization.
-
Stage of satisfying creative self-realization (after 33 years). The creative self-realization continues throughout human life. Meanwhile, the individual strives for self-preservation and building healthy self-esteem of the individual that are the basis of satisfaction with own creative self-realization.
Self-preservation of the organism is a function of the EGO as a product of the individual experience, balancing the control of the instinctive manifestations, resulting of the ID and the influence of other people upon the personality - the SUPER-EGO (Freud, 1986). The stage of conscious intentional creative self-realization and the stage of satisfying creative self-realization correspond to Erikson’s stage of Generativity versus Stagnation (Erikson, 1959; Erikson, 1963; Erikson, 1968; in Zanden, 1985) in some degree - a kind of behavior, which goes beyond the direct personal needs - for the society and the future generations, in dependence on human values. Creative self-realization of the individual is developed in an environment of positive or negative reinforcement by other individuals and is influenced by his/her competence to work with the parameters from the reality. Individuals create their own unique experience, realize it, defend themselves in accordance with their value system (Mutafova, 2015). The instinctive and conscious self-regulation helps individuals to stand up for themselves through a devotional and precise attitude towards others based on respect and tolerance. Love, nobility, attention, and healthy attitude are manifested throughout individual's life.
These developmental stages are based on psychoanalytical periodization, psychosexual developmental stages by Sigmund Freud (Freud, 1986; in Zanden, 1985), and psychosocial developmental stages (Erikson, 1959; Erikson, 1963; Erikson, 1968; in Zanden, 1985).