The Psychology of the Man-Child (Puer Aeternus)

The term puer aeternus is Latin for eternal boy. Carl Jung used the term in the exploration of the psychology of eternal youth and creative child within every person. It is an archetype, and like all archetypes, has both a positive and a negative side. It can bring the energy, beauty and creativity of childhood into adult life, or thwart self-realisation and doom us to both unrealistic adolescent fantasies and experiencing life as a prison. The puer is the man-child who refuses to grow up, take responsibility, and face life’s challenges, he expects other people, typically his parents, to solve all his problems. He tries to go as high as possible away from reality, ending up like Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, who lives in Neverland, a place where people cease to age and are eternally young. The puer aeternus is also known as the Peter Pan syndrome. This has become an increasingly common problem in our modern age. Those who find themselves unable to commit to work, to form satisfactory relationships, to commit to the discipline of education, to carry the weight of responsibility, or who feel that their life has become meaningless, will find the integration of the archetype of eternal youth invaluable in their life. ⭐ Support this channel: 📨 Subscribe with email: 📺 YouTube Member Perks: ☕ Donate a Coffee: 📘 PayPal: 🛒 Official Merch: 🎨 Access transcript and artwork gallery: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 Recommended Reading ▶ The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ▶ Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle With the Paradise of Childhood - Marie-Louise von Franz ▶ Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth : A Psychological Perspective on a Cultura - Ann Yeoman ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱 Discord ➔ 🐦 Twitter ➔ 📘 Facebook ➔ 📷 Instagram ➔ 🎧 Podcast ➔ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎶 Music used 1. Smoother Move – Kevin MacLeod 2. Cryptic Sorrow – Kevin MacLeod 3. Mysterious Ambient Background Music – The Rake – . Music 4. Trio for Piano Cello and Clarinet – Kevin MacLeod 5. Midsommar – Scott Buckley 6. Promising Relationship – Kevin MacLeod 7. Relent – Kevin MacLeod 8. Evening Fall Harp – Kevin MacLeod 9. Charms – Train – Sergey Cheremisinov 10. Charms – Waves – Sergey Cheremisinov Support the artists: Music Sergey Cheremisinov - Scott Buckley - Kevin MacLeod - Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📝 Sources - Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood by Marie Louise von Franz - Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung - Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth by Ann Yeoman - Jung on the Provisional Life #_ftn2 - Senex Play and Puer Play: A Jungian Interpretation of the Varieties of Recreation #_ftn23 - Marie Louise von Franz’s Puer Aeturnus: Lectures - Episode 125 – The Provisional Life: Redeeming the Real - Episode 072 - Puer – Puella: Trapped in the Inner Child An - Answer to the Question: “Why does the Puer Aeternus need to Work?“ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 2:36 Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood 15:08 Senex and Puer 16:55 The Role of Play in Jung’s Life 19:24 The Puer Aeternus and The Little Prince 26:16 Integration of Puer Aeternus ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Thanks for watching! #eternalyouth #psychology #jung