She does it very well, indeed. If you have Piirto s book and those of Teresa M. Amabile, whose work Piirto admires, you have about as clear a picture of the state of theory, definitions, and research into creativity as you could get. Creativity is a basic human instinct to make that which is new. While creativity is the natural propensity of human being-ness, creativity can be either enhanced or stifled. The creative personality can be either developed or thwarted.
Creativity takes certain habits of mind.
Creativity is not separate from intelligence or artistry, but part of the whole. What is unnatural is for it to be repressed, suppressed, and stymied through the process of growing up and being educated. Amen, say I, though a lot of those words need to be unwrapped and explained. She does that fairly well later in the book. My own study of creativity, done for the Air Force, was limited to its applications to practical implications for managers and engineers, so I was particularly pleased that Piirto includes aesthetic creativity and I hoped to learn something about that aspect as well.