Adolescence is an unsteady stretch of time between childhood and adulthood. It is also a profoundly creative, pro-active time of self-creation. Adolescence is not a time to fixate on a singular idea of self but a time to ask – Who am I?
Youth don’t have the security and comfort of knowing who they are to help them navigate their new independence in a exploding world. Their neurological, physical, emotional shifting/growth doesn’t allow for the security of real self-reliance. They are feet off the ground, floating until the weight of self-knowledge can ground them.
Like artists who immerse themselves in their art, adolescents immerse themselves in the art of creating self. The artist learns by doing and so does the adolescent who discovers self by doing self-work, by experimenting with different ways (shapes) of being and by playing with the materials of life. And they ask the same questions artists ask – Am I good enough? Will they like me? Do they get what I’m about? Do they understand? How am I different? Is that ok?
The artist begins creation with the blank canvas, page, stage, just as the adolescent begins the work of identity with the newness of the unknown set before them. It is this engagement with the unknown where self emerges.
“The process of identity formation depends on the interplay of what young persons at the end of childhood have come to mean to themselves and what they now appear to mean to those who become significant to them” (Erik Erikson, 1977).
Adolescents live in a world of unknowns. All is new for them. They meet the world with inexperienced eyes and souls, on their own terms, with the goal of collecting new experiences and feelings, seeking life knowledge. No longer do they look to adults for guidance. With friends and peers, they muddle through the questions of what it means to be them, in relationship, in this world. It is in the relationship, the long conversations, the working it out, the struggle, that identity emerges.
“To be creative means to experience life in one’s own way, to perceive from one’s own person, to draw upon one’s own resources, capacities, roots. It means facing life directly and honestly; courageously searching for and discovering grief, joy, suffering, pain, struggle, conflict, and finally inner solitude” (Moustakas, 1967, p. 27)
Discovery of self is creation in motion. Adolescence is creation in motion.
Yet, self-discovery is ephemeral, seemingly lost as soon as it’s found, nuanced and hard to hold onto. Sometimes it’s easier to just label yourself and others. Looking beneath the surface at the complexity of an emerging self takes time and effort and there is no time. Schools don’t offer or give it and parents are tired, busy, absorbed, avoidant.
Too often a person is seen for how they appear on the outside, status, grades, intelligence and not humanness, the core self, the inner divine…”to see the person as he sees himself is the deepest way to know and respect him” (Moustakas, 1956, p.4).
Adolescents aren’t suppose to answer the “Who am I?” question. They’re just suppose to ask it. Again and again and again. If they answer it, then they limit the possibilities.
But adolescents are overwhelmed with managing and making sense of the overload of internal and external stimuli and information. They are in a state of constant hyper-vigilance. And so the exhaustion, the short-cuts, the labeling and why French Revolution at 8 a.m. is impossible.
There are no major lights guiding ones way along the long corridors to self-discovery and there is little acknowledgement of the work of adolescence. It takes enormous time, energy and emotional fortitude to engage in this work. It takes real courage to enter the fray each day. To do so unmedicated expedites the process of self-discovery because in the work of identity formation is the absolute necessity to feel the journey face on. Only by knowing your emotional landscape, being comfortable in your own skin, can we know ourselves.
The work of adolescence is inherently and beautifully creative. How can it be anything but creative when a youth, driven to seek form and meaning, is driven to do the essential work of creating a functioning, vitally engaged, adult self that will last one lifetime.
References:
Erikson, Erik, (1956). Toys and reason. New York: Norton.
Moustakas Clark E. (ed) (1956). The self – explorations in personal growth. New York: Harper & Row.
Moustakas, Clark. (1967). Creativity and Conformity. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand Insight Series.
And isn’t it the work of the parent to step away – but not too far away – and allow that child to ask the questions, to find their own way, make the mistakes and do the learning. If we step in, do we retard that processing and asking that you say is essential?