Peter Pan Syndrome

[Jhanananda]

The spiritual crises is more about becoming aware of our psychoses than anything else.  Thus traversing the spiritual crises is overcoming our psychoses.

The Peter Pan Syndrome (aka Puer aeternus) is common among the spiritual seekers of the world.  It is typified by: a profound lack of: self-awareness; critical thinking; an inability to come to terms with reality; and a belief that a divine being will protect us if we only had enough: faith, or keep thinking "positively," or lead a "pure" enough, or "righteous" enough, lifestyle.  It is also typified by an inability to lead a disciplined, contemplative lifestyle.  Thus, the Puer aeternus is not likely to have sufficient self-awareness and/or critical thinking to know that he or she is a Puer aeternus.

Puer aeternus is Latin for eternal boy, used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically, it is an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level. The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.

The puer in mythology
The words, puer aeternus, come from Metamorphoses, an epic work by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – c.17 AD) dealing with Greek and Roman myths. In the poem, Ovid addresses the child-god Iacchus as puer aeternus and praises him for his role in the Eleusinian mysteries. Iacchus is later identified with the gods Dionysus and Eros. The puer is a god of vegetation and resurrection, the god of divine youth, such as Tammuz, Attis and Adonis.[2] The figure of a young god who is slain and resurrected also appears in Egyptian mythology as the story of Osiris.

The puer in Jungian psychology

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung developed a school of thought called analytical psychology, distinguishing it from the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). In analytical psychology (often called "Jungian psychology") the puer aeternus is an example of what Jung called an archetype, one of the "primordial, structural elements of the human psyche".[3]

The shadow of the puer is the senex (Latin for "old man"), associated with the god Cronus—disciplined, controlled, responsible, rational, ordered. Conversely, the shadow of the senex is the puer, related to Hermes or Dionysus—unbounded instinct, disorder, intoxication, whimsy.[4]

Like all archetypes, the puer is bi-polar, exhibiting both a "positive" and a "negative" aspect. The "positive" side of the puer appears as the Divine Child who symbolizes newness, potential for growth, hope for the future. He also foreshadows the hero that he sometimes becomes (e.g. Heracles). The "negative" side is the child-man who refuses to grow up and meet the challenges of life face on, waiting instead for his ship to come in and solve all his problems.

[rougeleader115]

This is the kind of thing I am trying to get help with. I began seeing a councilor two weeks ago in an attempt to gain a better perspective of my thought processes and behaviors. I cycle between the two states of growth and betterment of myself mentally, physically, and spiritually and extreme dips into depression and anxiety and am nearly paralyzed from activity. I have felt very ashamed of the times I am low and cannot function as a normal person does. I find I only have enough direction and energy to hold a conversation and even that is too much at times. And my meditations become difficult as it feels i am either ending up in deeper spaces of energy than i am used to, or that the anxiety and depression i feel are masking/altering the way i percieve the charisms. Sometimes I just cant bring myself to sit still. I just do not know what to do with myself. So my hope is that maybe I can see if I am thinking critically at all in the choices I make and the things I express. I don't expect any magic, just maybe to get a better grasp of myself. Does anyone have any input on this?

Rougeleader

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, rougeleader115, for posting your honest challenges to your spiritual development.  In the 90s I saw a psychologist weekly for 9 years.  I recognized that our work together was more about he being an aide to developing self-awareness and critical thinking in me, so I just took him in my life as an aide in the development of the 7th fold of the Noble Eightfold path.

However, toward the end of our professional relationship he also brought up the radio/record player metaphor, which I have used here in a number of places.  Basically the mind gets stuck in a groove of thinking.  That groove is often times negative.  We can simply choose a different station to listen to.  In the case of the mystic we switch from the "headbanger music station" to the heavenly choir station, which is attending to the charisms.

For instance, when I think of my childhood, and my family of origin I get depressed, and thoughts of suicide arise.  Now, I have found the "off switch" for my mind, so I generally keep the mind still (off) throughout the day, and attend to the charisms that are with me throughout the day.  The consequence is feelings of depression and thoughts of suicide are replaced by feelings of joy and fulfillment. So, perhaps you could try this?

[Michel]

For me, the N8P has been the best form of therapy. Replace those negative mind states with wholesome ones. Change that downer of a radio station to something more wholesome.

6. Right Effort  (samma-vayama) 
1) To prevent unwholesome states from arising: the Five Hindrances, the Ten Fetters/Ten Defilements
2) To abandon unwholesome states that have arisen
3) To arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen: the Brahma-Viharas, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Noble Eightfold Path, etc. - especially to arouse the Seven Factors of Enlightenment leading to jhana, serenity and insight.
4) To maintain and perfect arisen wholesome states

7. Right Mindfulness and Self-awareness (samma-sati)  - The Four Foundations of Mindfulness:
1) Mindful contemplation/awareness of the body (kaya): breath meditation,  the four postures, clear comprehension in all bodily activities, anatomical contemplations, the four elements, the cemetery contemplations
2) Mindful contemplation/awareness of physical sensations/emotional feelings (vedana): pleasant, unpleasant, neutral sensations (the triggers for greed, hatred and delusion)
3) Mindful contemplation/awareness of mind states (citta): greed/non-greed; hatred/non-hatred; delusion/non-delusion; drowsiness/distraction; divine/not divine; surpassed/unsurpassed; absorbed or ecstatic (jhana)/unabsorbed or non-ecstatic; liberated/un-liberated
4) Mindful contemplation/awareness/investigation of the Five Dhammas (dhammas):
The Five Hindrances - awareness of their arising and passing away; understanding what causes a hindrance to arise and pass away; and how a future arising of a hindrance can be prevented.
The Five Aggregates of Clinging - seen as arising and passing away; that they are  impermanent, suffering & non-self.
The Six-sense Bases - awareness of any fetter generated by them; that they are impermanent, suffering & non-self.
The Seven Factors of Enlightenment - to be developed (mostly come from the attainment of jhana)
The Four Noble Truths - to be utterly understood.

[Jhanananda]

If you do all of this Michel, in every moment, then you are indeed leading a rigorous, self-aware, contemplative life, which surely will lead to fruitful attainment (maha-phala).

[Michel]

Well I'm not there yet. But I'm moving towards doing it every moment. I'm going to place much less emphasis on book learning and more emphasis on pure practice of the N8P. All this studying is really an impediment. I've got enough stuff to work with.

I feel that I am beginning to really understand how to practice the N8P and its factors that are within reach at this stage of my development. It took me some time to figure it out. And of course, I appreciate your help too. So thank-you, Jhananda. I've got a practice that I can follow. The N8P also provides me with a bench mark for interpreting other spiritual teachings. 

[Jhanananda]

After having recently finished reading the discourses, I can say with a certain measure of confidence that there is certainly a pile of nonsense about Buddhism, and I'm sure you helped him a great deal towards a better understanding of what the Buddha was teaching in the Pali Canon.

Having read the Discourses of the Buddha, and having implemented what you have read, and having had some direction from someone who also followed the the Discourses of the Buddha, then all you need to is follow it diligently, as it seems you are doing.

[Zack]

I didn't realize there was already a thread about the 'puer aeternus' and almost started a new one, as I feel it is an important concept to be familiar with, and one that seems to be rampant now as modern industrial society has separated a lot of people from toil, struggle, direct engagement with survival, and a connection to the earth.

When I first encountered a description of it, parts of it described me much more pointedly then I was comfortable with, which stung, but ultimately led to me sifting through the information and figuring out how it applied to my specific situation. It seems like thinking in terms of "archetypes" can bring some of the same problems as thinking in terms of traditional western psychological diagnoses, which is to say it can be accurate in broad ways, but negates a person's humanity when strictly applied as a label or identification. Nevertheless, they can be helpful in that broad way, with critical thinking and emotional awareness then taking the broad generalities and comparing them to your personal experience. It also seems like most subtle realizations you can't force, and in a way just getting the information into your head, letting it gestate and make connections, and then letting the insights come with time is how the process unfolds; at least that's how it often is for me. When I realized my intention was to understand myself and not punish and cram myself into a box, or a story, the process of acceptance and integration began. Which isn't to say that process is complete, but it's moved along, and I am more aware than I was before.

In my understanding of it, the puer has a too strict separation of the light and dark within themselves--the puerile and cloyingly sweet, naive spiritual high-flier, and the bitter, repressed, angry and violent shadow side--and it's in closing the gap between the two and allowing them to integrate that one becomes whole.

Here are some quotes from a particularly good page on the 'puer aeternus':

This all leads to a form of neurosis which H.G. Baynes has described as the “provisional life,” that is, the strange attitude and feeling that one is not yet in real life.  For the time being one is doing this or that, but whether it is a woman or a job, it is not yet what is really wanted, and there is always the fantasy that sometime in the future the real thing will come about.  If this attitude is prolonged, it means a constant inner refusal to commit oneself to the moment.  With this there is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a saviour complex, or a Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else, will be found.  This can go on so far as to be a typical pathological megalomania, or there may be minor traces of it in the idea that one’s time “has not yet come.”  The one thing dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatever.  There is a terrific fear of being pinned down, of entering space and time completely, and of being the singular human being that one is.  There is always the fear of being caught in a situation from which it may be impossible to slip out again.  Every just-so situation is hell.  At the same time, there is a highly symbolic fascination for dangerous sports – particularly flying and mountaineering – so as to get as high as possible, the symbolism being to get away from reality, from the earth, from ordinary life.  If this type of complex is very pronounced, many such men die young in airplane crashes and mountaineering accidents.

. . .

As far as reason is concerned, he is right, but then he does not live; reason has too much say in his life.  He does not allow for the unreasonable human side which does not always prepare for the retreat because there will be a disappointment.  That shows a lack of generosity.  Why can one not say, “Of course there will be disappointment because all experiences in life are transient and may end in disappointment, but let’s not anticipate it.  Let us give ourselves with full love to the situation as long as it is there.”  The one does not exclude the other.  One need not be the fool who believes in nothing but happiness and then falls from the clouds, but if one always retreats at the beginning in anticipation of the suffering, that is a typical pathological reaction.  It is something many neurotic people do.  They try to train themselves not to suffer by always anticipating suffering.  One person said, “I always think ahead of the suffering to come and like that I am trained against it.  I try to anticipate it in fantasy all the time.”  But that is typically morbid and completely prevents you from living.  A double attitude is required: that of knowing how things are likely to turn out, and that of giving oneself completely to the experience all the same.  Otherwise there is no life.  Reason organizes it ahead of time so that one may be protected against suffering  - in order that one shall not get the full experience, naively – just when one does not expect it.  In that case, reason and consciousness have taken too much away from life – exactly what the puer aeternus tries to do all the time.  He does not want to give himself to life and tries to block it off by organizing it with his reason.  That is precisely the morbid disease. 

. . .

My experience is that it does not matter, if you analyze a man of this type, whether you force him to take the outer of the inner world seriously; that is really unimportant, though perhaps it depends on the type.  The important thing is that he should stick something out.  If it is analysis, then analyze seriously, take the dreams seriously, live according to them, or, if not, then take a job and really live the outer life.  The important thing is to do something thoroughly, whatever it is.  But the great danger, or the neurotic problem, is that the puer aeternus, or the man caught in this problem, tends to (…) just put it in a box and shut the lid on it in a gesture of sudden impatience.  That is why people tell you suddenly that they have another plan, that this is not what they were looking for.  And they always do it at the moment where things become difficult.  It is the everlasting switching which is the dangerous thing, not what they do. 

. . .

One of the problems is that if the puer enter life, then he must face the fact of his mortality and the corruptible world.  He must accept the fact of his own death.  That is a variation of the old mythological motif where after leaving Paradise, which is a kind of archetypal womb, man falls into the realization of his incompleteness, corruptibility, and mortality.

. . .

(Regarding a particular person’s dream analysis where the focus is in a prison) … So the prison is the negative symbol of the mother complex ( in which he sits all the time anyhow), or it would be prospectively just exactly what he needs, for he needs to be put into prison, into the prison of reality.  But if he runs away from the prison of reality, he is in the prison of his mother complex, so it is prison anyway, wherever he turns.  He has only the choice of two prisons, either that of his neurosis or that of his reality: thus he is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.  That is his fate, and that is the fate of the puer aeternus altogether.  It is up to him which prison he prefers: that of his mother complex and his neurosis, or of being caught in the just-so story of earthly reality.

. . .

If you venture into life, into reality, instead of keeping outside so as to avoid suffering, you will find that the earth and women are like a fertile field on which you can work and that life is also death; that if you give yourself to reality, you will be disillusioned and the end of it will be that you will meet death.  If you accept your life, you really, in the deepest sense of the word, accept death.  If you accept your life, you really, in the deepest sense of the word, accept death, and that is what the puer does not want.  He does not want to accept mortality, and that is why he does not want to go into reality, because the end of it is the realization of his weakness and of his mortality.  He identifies with the immortal and does not accept the mortal twin, but by going into life he would assimilate the mortal brother.

[Cal]

In my understanding of it, the puer has a too strict separation of the light and dark within themselves--the puerile and cloyingly sweet, naive spiritual high-flier, and the bitter, repressed, angry and violent shadow side--and it's in closing the gap between the two and allowing them to integrate that one becomes whole.

Here are some quotes from a particularly good page on the 'puer aeternus':

This all leads to a form of neurosis which H.G. Baynes has described as the “provisional life,” that is, the strange attitude and feeling that one is not yet in real life.  For the time being one is doing this or that, but whether it is a woman or a job, it is not yet what is really wanted, and there is always the fantasy that sometime in the future the real thing will come about.  If this attitude is prolonged, it means a constant inner refusal to commit oneself to the moment.  With this there is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a saviour complex, or a Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else, will be found.  This can go on so far as to be a typical pathological megalomania, or there may be minor traces of it in the idea that one’s time “has not yet come.”  The one thing dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatever.  There is a terrific fear of being pinned down, of entering space and time completely, and of being the singular human being that one is.  There is always the fear of being caught in a situation from which it may be impossible to slip out again.  Every just-so situation is hell.  At the same time, there is a highly symbolic fascination for dangerous sports – particularly flying and mountaineering – so as to get as high as possible, the symbolism being to get away from reality, from the earth, from ordinary life.  If this type of complex is very pronounced, many such men die young in airplane crashes and mountaineering accidents.

. . .

As far as reason is concerned, he is right, but then he does not live; reason has too much say in his life.  He does not allow for the unreasonable human side which does not always prepare for the retreat because there will be a disappointment.  That shows a lack of generosity.  Why can one not say, “Of course there will be disappointment because all experiences in life are transient and may end in disappointment, but let’s not anticipate it.  Let us give ourselves with full love to the situation as long as it is there.”  The one does not exclude the other.  One need not be the fool who believes in nothing but happiness and then falls from the clouds, but if one always retreats at the beginning in anticipation of the suffering, that is a typical pathological reaction.  It is something many neurotic people do.  They try to train themselves not to suffer by always anticipating suffering.  One person said, “I always think ahead of the suffering to come and like that I am trained against it.  I try to anticipate it in fantasy all the time.”  But that is typically morbid and completely prevents you from living.  A double attitude is required: that of knowing how things are likely to turn out, and that of giving oneself completely to the experience all the same.  Otherwise there is no life.  Reason organizes it ahead of time so that one may be protected against suffering  - in order that one shall not get the full experience, naively – just when one does not expect it.  In that case, reason and consciousness have taken too much away from life – exactly what the puer aeternus tries to do all the time.  He does not want to give himself to life and tries to block it off by organizing it with his reason.  That is precisely the morbid disease. 

. . .

My experience is that it does not matter, if you analyze a man of this type, whether you force him to take the outer of the inner world seriously; that is really unimportant, though perhaps it depends on the type.  The important thing is that he should stick something out.  If it is analysis, then analyze seriously, take the dreams seriously, live according to them, or, if not, then take a job and really live the outer life.  The important thing is to do something thoroughly, whatever it is.  But the great danger, or the neurotic problem, is that the puer aeternus, or the man caught in this problem, tends to (…) just put it in a box and shut the lid on it in a gesture of sudden impatience.  That is why people tell you suddenly that they have another plan, that this is not what they were looking for.  And they always do it at the moment where things become difficult.  It is the everlasting switching which is the dangerous thing, not what they do. 

. . .

One of the problems is that if the puer enter life, then he must face the fact of his mortality and the corruptible world.  He must accept the fact of his own death.  That is a variation of the old mythological motif where after leaving Paradise, which is a kind of archetypal womb, man falls into the realization of his incompleteness, corruptibility, and mortality.

. . .

(Regarding a particular person’s dream analysis where the focus is in a prison) … So the prison is the negative symbol of the mother complex ( in which he sits all the time anyhow), or it would be prospectively just exactly what he needs, for he needs to be put into prison, into the prison of reality.  But if he runs away from the prison of reality, he is in the prison of his mother complex, so it is prison anyway, wherever he turns.  He has only the choice of two prisons, either that of his neurosis or that of his reality: thus he is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.  That is his fate, and that is the fate of the puer aeternus altogether.  It is up to him which prison he prefers: that of his mother complex and his neurosis, or of being caught in the just-so story of earthly reality.

. . .

If you venture into life, into reality, instead of keeping outside so as to avoid suffering, you will find that the earth and women are like a fertile field on which you can work and that life is also death; that if you give yourself to reality, you will be disillusioned and the end of it will be that you will meet death.  If you accept your life, you really, in the deepest sense of the word, accept death.  If you accept your life, you really, in the deepest sense of the word, accept death, and that is what the puer does not want.  He does not want to accept mortality, and that is why he does not want to go into reality, because the end of it is the realization of his weakness and of his mortality.  He identifies with the immortal and does not accept the mortal twin, but by going into life he would assimilate the mortal brother.

I do really dislike articles like this. Bias is flamboyant and the author screams with passion that she was wronged by this type of person and shes so smart that she figured out why he was the way he is. Theres just so much judgement in this. She actually had the nerve to talk about Ego? Every paragraph has a picture of her elated face, it was distracting while reading. It struck a nerve. This subject in general summarizes almost entirely the journey I had to take in finding religious phenomena. Man its so hard not to be angry when someone only points out the negative, comes to conclusion, and then slams an answer in the face of the reader, a complete abstract one at that. Because, not just one time did I make this journey, but several times. I went from saying fuck it Ill just do it and commit, against my own judgement. To being completely introverted and content with "not fitting the mold".  Thankfully, this cycle is "lessened" now, and I can be aware of it. The term itself, and its definition is good for identifying, like you pointed out. I'd honestly expect to see this kind of banter (the article) in a personal blog. Thanks for the post, Zack, it was good to reflect on, excuse my manners please.

I almost feel obligated to give some reflection on some of the points made in the article because I just did exactly what I disliked in her doing. Meh.

[Zack]

I do really dislike articles like this. Bias is flamboyant and the author screams with passion that she was wronged by this type of person and shes so smart that she figured out why he was the way he is. Theres just so much judgement in this. She actually had the nerve to talk about Ego? Every paragraph has a picture of her elated face, it was distracting while reading. It struck a nerve. This subject in general summarizes almost entirely the journey I had to take in finding religious phenomena. Man its so hard not to be angry when someone only points out the negative, comes to conclusion, and then slams an answer in the face of the reader, a complete abstract one at that. Because, not just one time did I make this journey, but several times. I went from saying fuck it Ill just do it and commit, against my own judgement. To being completely introverted and content with "not fitting the mold".  Thankfully, this cycle is "lessened" now, and I can be aware of it. The term itself, and its definition is good for identifying, like you pointed out. I'd honestly expect to see this kind of banter (the article) in a personal blog. Thanks for the post, Zack, it was good to reflect on, excuse my manners please.

I almost feel obligated to give some reflection on some of the points made in the article because I just did exactly what I disliked in her doing. Meh.

First, the writer of those words is Marie-Louise Von Franz, who has been dead for a while and had nothing to do with that web page or her picture being beside every paragraph. Also, in her books on the subject she points out the phenomenon is not entirely a negative one but has many positive qualities, it only veers towards the negative when someone becomes wholly engulfed by it (and again, I don't really think any person ever can live out an "archetype" that fully; I'm about as comfortable with archetypes as psychological diagnoses), and it's something to be recognized, transcended, and then integrated. And, from the little I've read about her biography, she was open about her own struggles. I don't think she was sitting back and taking cheap shots at anyone--she was a psychologist, and her life's work revolved around these subjects--and I don't think she was just focusing on the negative. I see it more as cutting to the chase, because it's a very real psychological process and needs to be dealt with.

I had strong reactions when I first read about the puer. Because I instantly knew it was true and was hitting at something deep. In one of her books she talks about one type that as opposed to living a care-free life instead had to grow up fast and steel itself against the world in uneasy circumstances, yet a lot of the resulting “maturation” is really just a brittle, cynical psychological defense against the world, and inside is a hiding child that wasn't allowed to develop in a fully productive and healthy way. Again, it's that uneven and unintegrated separation of light and dark, the hardened and cynical vs the childish and hopeful. There's a lot more I can say about this but am going to cut it short for now.

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, Zack and Cal for contributing your thoughts on the subject of the Puer aeternus.  I find the Puer aeternus best describes the New-Ager; however, I am reminded that a psychologist who does not understand the contemplative life, and it's superior fruit would likely dismiss all of us here, and especially me, as  Puers.

Cal certainly points out that the  Puer aeternus lacks mindful self-awareness; and therefore the  Puer is healed through cultivating mindful self-awareness; which is precisely one of the critical components of a fruitful contemplative life, as is critical thinking, which Puers also tend to lack.  And, critical thinking is another critical components of a fruitful contemplative life.

[Cal]

I do really dislike articles like this. Bias is flamboyant and the author screams with passion that she was wronged by this type of person and shes so smart that she figured out why he was the way he is. Theres just so much judgement in this. She actually had the nerve to talk about Ego? Every paragraph has a picture of her elated face, it was distracting while reading. It struck a nerve. This subject in general summarizes almost entirely the journey I had to take in finding religious phenomena. Man its so hard not to be angry when someone only points out the negative, comes to conclusion, and then slams an answer in the face of the reader, a complete abstract one at that. Because, not just one time did I make this journey, but several times. I went from saying fuck it Ill just do it and commit, against my own judgement. To being completely introverted and content with "not fitting the mold".  Thankfully, this cycle is "lessened" now, and I can be aware of it. The term itself, and its definition is good for identifying, like you pointed out. I'd honestly expect to see this kind of banter (the article) in a personal blog. Thanks for the post, Zack, it was good to reflect on, excuse my manners please.

I almost feel obligated to give some reflection on some of the points made in the article because I just did exactly what I disliked in her doing. Meh.

First, the writer of those words is Marie-Louise Von Franz, who has been dead for a while and had nothing to do with that web page or her picture being beside every paragraph. Also, in her books on the subject she points out the phenomenon is not entirely a negative one but has many positive qualities, it only veers towards the negative when someone becomes wholly engulfed by it (and again, I don't really think any person ever can live out an "archetype" that fully; I'm about as comfortable with archetypes as psychological diagnoses), and it's something to be recognized, transcended, and then integrated. And, from the little I've read about her biography, she was open about her own struggles. I don't think she was sitting back and taking cheap shots at anyone--she was a psychologist, and her life's work revolved around these subjects--and I don't think she was just focusing on the negative. I see it more as cutting to the chase, because it's a very real psychological process and needs to be dealt with.

I had strong reactions when I first read about the puer. Because I instantly knew it was true and was hitting at something deep. In one of her books she talks about one type that as opposed to living a care-free life instead had to grow up fast and steel itself against the world in uneasy circumstances, yet a lot of the resulting “maturation” is really just a brittle, cynical psychological defense against the world, and inside is a hiding child that wasn't allowed to develop in a fully productive and healthy way. Again, it's that uneven and unintegrated separation of light and dark, the hardened and cynical vs the childish and hopeful. There's a lot more I can say about this but am going to cut it short for now.

Its just that she defined in the "reaction" of things, also on events that had impacted her personally. I felt this in her words. When she said things like the; "sleepy, undisciplined, long-legged youth who merely hangs around, his mind wandering indiscriminately, so that sometimes one feels inclined to pour a bucket of cold water over his head" this reflects a dislike. A dislike she herself felt and is relaying to the reader. Perpetrating a "framed" abnormality and characterization. Objectivity; (My own read) "I have seen and experienced these persons, like you (audience), this is what it is (opinion). I dont see her taking a full on psychological approach to the subject, or at the very least, a professional one. I would be surprised to find that her study, in reference to this article, was done over a broad audience. I'd suspect her observations were made on a single individual, possibly a case study, most likely a personal relationship. "...puer aeternus... in most cases...a man who has an outstanding mother complex are, as Jung points out, homosexuality and Don Juanism." 

Yea I could really tell in the context of things that this was written in the 50's-70's, and the opinions of that generation are not something I considered originally. Its just articles like this are spoken with such authority on abstract concepts. They become almost uncomfortable to read when the ego (personality) of the writer is jumping off the page. (Not in reference to the pictures) Maybe its just me.

I dont want to take away from what youre pointing out though Zack, as you couldnt be more right. Im ranting at this writing woman, psychology, and the gross misinterpretation of society on "what is normal". Yes there are these traits, as outlined in the article, and sometimes it takes some brutal honesty with oneself, or from someone else to bring them to the surface.

[Zack]

It's not about the writer, or the abstract archetypal language, though I do respect this woman's insights into the human psyche. There is more being conveyed, and I think it's quite possible to read something and simultaneously not identify or align yourself totally. I encourage anyone interested to read more about the subject and figure out what it means for themselves. I suspect it might spark a few insights. The take-away is not that you need to adopt a conventional, status quo lifestyle or uphold a dysfunctional society or flawed relationship models.

[Zack]

In one of her books she talks about one type that as opposed to living a care-free life instead had to grow up fast and steel itself against the world in uneasy circumstances, yet a lot of the resulting “maturation” is really just a brittle, cynical psychological defense against the world, and inside is a hiding child that wasn't allowed to develop in a fully productive and healthy way.

For the record, I brought that up because I saw myself in that description.