Are You A Puer Aeternus?

24.03.25

After 7 years of working as a therapist, I noticed that 80% of my patients display common traits of what Carl Jung called the Puer Aeternus and Puella Aeterna. Simply put, these are people who have a childish view of the world and relationships, and this is the main cause of their emotional and psychological struggles.

Nowadays, people call it the man-child or woman-child, or even the Peter Pan Syndrome. The root cause tends to be an unresolved mother and father complex. In other words, they never individuated from their parents and feel like a child trapped in an adult’s body.

I know this inside-out because I used to be a man-child and today, it became one of my specialties as a therapist. So much so that I recently released a series of articles with almost 14k words detailing the most common patterns and how to overcome the Puer and Puella Aeternus.

This series became part of my book PISTIS – Demystifying Jungian Psychology. Today, I want to synthesize these ideas and bring a fresh perspective. That said, it’s important to understand that the Puer occurs on a spectrum, maybe you’ll identify with some traits or perhaps you’ll realize you’re a major Puer like I was, lol.

For the sake of this article, I’ll hammer on the most common traits. Everything can be summarized in what Carl Jung calls the provisional life or as I like to call it, the “chicken flight mode”.

The Chicken Flight Mode (Provisional Life)

Helton Baynes, a personal friend of Carl Jung, says that to live provisionally means to abdicate from your capacity to own your decisions and take responsibility. In the place of these functions, the Puer tends to adopt unnecessary drama, confusion, and self-justification. When a function that should be conscious is repressed, a sense of inferiority and self-accusation naturally emerges.

“Hence people who are living the provisional life are constantly impelled to explain to anyone who will listen how the circumstances of their life, their ill health, their intense sympathy for the suffering of others, their extreme sensitivity to noise, light, heat, cold, psychic atmosphere, climate, constipation, insomnia and the rest, all conspire to prevent them from living a normal responsible existence” (H. G. Baynes – Analytical Psychology and The British Mind, p. 74).

In other words, the Puer lives in the illusion that everything is harder for him. They secretly enjoy being perceived as incapable and fragile so others take responsibility in their place. They’re masters in calculating exactly how little effort they can put in so they don’t get fired from their jobs or have to face a breakup.

To compensate for this mediocre life they’re abducted by the intoxicating realm of possibilities, potentials, and romantic obsessions. There’s a perpetual longing for the perfect thing and waiting for the perfect conditions.

As a result, they are constantly building sand castles on a windy beach. When everything falls apart they look for someone to blame, when in reality, they never commit to anything long enough and never go all in. I like to call that the “chicken flight mode”.

If you ever seen a chicken trying to fly, you know they run as fast as they can for a few seconds, then jump spreading their wings, and land a couple of meters away. After their mad display of flying skills, they call it a day.

That is exactly how the Puer operates. They spend weeks, if not months, creating megalomaniac plans, and then they give their all for a few days. After not getting immediate results, they delude themselves saying they went all in and it didn’t work out. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

The obvious problem is that they’re never consistent and lack long-term thinking. The results they want to obtain are always disconnected from the effort and time it requires. Behind this mindset, there’s a childish expectation that they should master everything on their first try.

As soon as it gets difficult or they get their first results and realize it’ll require effort to progress, they abandon everything. Sticking to the process involves realizing that they aren’t a special snowflake and will have to endure the learning process just like everybody else.

Many fall on the perfectionism side, but this is only a protection against an imaginary failure. The mindset “If I never try I can’t ever fail” perfectly encapsulates this. This tends to mingle with procrastination, and as a result, they’re constantly stuck. But procrastination is only a symptom of something deeper, their desire to never grow up and fully take responsibility for their lives.

The second problem is that they tend to be externally motivated. In other words, they only accomplish things when there’s external pressure, be it from a teacher, boss, or deadline. They always do everything last minute and when they “feel like it”.

This is yet another symptom of an unresolved mother and father complex since they’re projected on these figures of authority. That’s why the quickest way to realize if someone is being influenced by a negative mother complex is a constant search for comfort.

Many Puers take pride in their laziness but everything is a maneuver to stay in this endless loop and avoid dealing with reality. They become hostages to their own fantasies and as long as they’re telling everyone about their plans, they can delude themselves and think they’re doing something productive.

When they’re confronted about their lack of responsibility, the problem is never in themselves. They always blame their parents and use their past as an excuse. Or they blame “the system” and the inability of others to see how incredibly amazing they are.

Everything so they don’t have to become an adult. This insidious sense of entitlement makes them expect the world to bend to their will and cater to their every need, without them giving anything valuable in return nor applying real effort. That’s precisely why they never accomplish anything great, never develop their talents, and settle for a mediocre and neurotic life.

It’s Not That Complicated

Now, the Puer Aeternus tends to be extremely bright and they’re full of potential. The problem is that they take their gifts and talents for granted. They don’t respect themselves enough to commit to developing a craft, and they’re too selfish to be in service of something greater than themselves.

Because they tend to be highly intelligent, they become arrogant. The problem is that they only understand things intellectually. There’s no action and experience behind it, it’s a half-knowledge that has no life. Deep down, they are huge hypocrites, because their ideals do not hold up in reality and they’re too afraid to face the world and actually live by them.

They believe that common and proven solutions are beneath them. It might work for everyone else except for them! There’s a great tendency to overcomplicate things and create unnecessary drama. Especially when the solution is simple, they’ll find a way to excuse themselves.

Again, their arrogance is always their downfall. That’s why they’re constantly stuck in life. But let me tell you something: Bro, it’s not that complicated. You’re not special and you’ll have to do the work and learn just like everybody else.

You have to focus mainly on two things. In my book, I say that the biggest shadow of Puer is the body and practical aspects of life. Precisely because they live in fantasy land and never develop discipline and consistency.

You can do that by letting go of your megalomaniac fantasies and focusing on fixing what’s right in front of you. Start by taking care of your body, and your nutrition, and having a proper routine. Tackle the most immediate problems in your work and relationships.

We solve our psychological struggles by taking action and being in movement, you can’t think your way out of them. The magical solutions you’re looking for are all in the mundane choices you’re avoiding. Healing is a construction and not a single moment in time and all of these tiny actions are the building blocks of the new you.

You must learn that an adult accomplishes what has to be done regardless of moods and external circumstances. An adult always takes responsibility and acts according to his values, not when they “feel like it”.

Once you fix the basics and come to reality, your authentic self and desires start to resurface. This leads to the second step: meaningful work. To distinguish this from mere work, I’d like to bring the concept of Resistance by Steven Pressfield.

He says that Resistance, with a capital R, is the enemy within and this force is in direct proportion to how important a task is for the development of our souls. In other words, the cure isn’t mindlessly working but moving in the direction of our fears and putting our talents in service of something greater than ourselves.

Resistance always appears when we’re about to reach new heights. That’s why it’s easy to know when we’re on the right path because when we refuse this calling, we feel like a part of us is dying. Conversely, when we’re fully engaged in this mission, we feel truly alive and all of our nihilistic tendencies vanish.

Finally, the goal isn’t to murder your inner child because the Puer Aeternus isn’t bad, it’s the archetype of the divine child. It’s full of potential, creativity, and imagination. But for it to work correctly, it needs a mature vessel and connection to reality. What has to be conquered is our childishness so these qualities can find a positive expression.

All you need is a bit of courage. It’s not that complicated.

• Check the full series here: Conquer The Puer and Puella Aeternus

Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life

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