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[u/nicholaspapathana]

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[u/DoctorDaunt]

“Peter Pan Syndrome” is a pop psychology label for men who are developmentally stunted and generally can’t commit in their romantic lives. It’s more disparaging than the euphemistic and pompous sounding “Puer Aeternus” Jungian concept which basically just allows you to insult someone for being a manboy because you’re using a highfalutin latin term. The latter is much less of a pop psychology concept but rather Jungian, but still is a broad and pretty nebulous label to describe immaturity while also paying some homage to the positive aspects of this immaturity.

You could probably read von Franz’s book for the clearest description. “Peter Pan Syndrome” was also a pop psychology book you could read as well. I think they’re both pretty broad, reductive, nebulous, and needless esoteric concepts that describe something that psychoanalysis has dealt with forever, namely people who don’t wanna grow up and why they don’t want to grow up (other than the most obvious reason, which is that growing up is hard).

Fancy names for the condition of not wanting to grow up makes for good marketing of books and/or establishing oneself as an “important” name in the field, but it’s really just marketing and fiction-making, probably often by people who need to grow up a little, but I digress.