Puer aeternus

In the analytical psychology of Carl Jung, the term is used to describe an older person whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level, which is also known as "Peter Pan syndrome", a more recent pop-psychology label.

[2] Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung developed a school of thought called analytical psychology, distinguishing it from the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939).

The "negative" side is the child-man who refuses to grow up and meet the challenges of life head-on, waiting instead for his ship to come in and solve all his problems.

That higher and 'complete' (teleios) man is begotten by the 'unknown' father and born from Wisdom, and it is he who, in the figure of the puer aeternus—'vultu mutabilis albus et ater'[8]—represents our totality, which transcends consciousness.

Christ's 'Except ye become as little children' prefigures this change, for in them the opposites lie close together; but what is meant is the boy who is born from the maturity of the adult man, and not the unconscious child we would like to remain.

In the first eight of twelve lectures, von Franz illustrates the theme of the puer aeternus by examining the story of The Little Prince from the book of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Bruno Goetz certainly had a prophetic gift about what was coming, and ... his book anticipates the whole Nazi problem, throwing light upon it from the angle of the puer aeternus".

[10]Now or Neverland is a 1998 book written by Jungian analyst Ann Yeoman dealing with the puer aeternus in the form of Peter Pan, one of the most well-known examples of the concept in the modern era.

The book is a psychological overview of the eternal boy archetype, from its ancient roots to contemporary experience, including a detailed interpretation of J. M. Barrie's popular 1904 play and 1911 novel.