Authenticity, I suggest, is a continuum, a spectrum of stages, that may never end, since the self is a largely unknown thing, and that exploration of self, if done with regular determination, is always going to be revealing “new stuff”.
Almost all children suffer a sustained and often targeted string of traumatic micro, and macro-aggressions, from the moment they are born.
The DNA-Self theory proposes that each new-born enters the world with a pre-populated schema network, this is a complete developmental blueprint encoded in genetic material, shaped by prenatal environment, containing latent traits, skills, and associated needs awaiting activation through exploration.
There is the suggestion that the phenomena of Imaginary Friends, seen in many children around the globe, very often fitting into that child’s acceptable world-view, but often found concerning, by their parents, could be externalised projections from their own mind. Some kind of imaginative overlay, but with the ability to offer additional insight to the child, by adding a second, or third view to any situation.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development proposes that children progress through four distinct stages of intellectual growth, each characterized by unique ways of thinking and understanding the world