Carl Jung and the Psychology of the Man-Child

man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore maria luiza von Franz a Swiss psychologist noticed a disturbing trend in the mid 20th century many men and women who were well into their adult years remained psychologically stunted in their maturation they occupied the bodies of adults but their mental development failed to keep pace von Franz saw this as such a pressing issue that in 1959 she gave a series of lectures on the psychology of the Pury Ternes which is Latin for eternal child while originally this term was used in mythology to refer to a child God who remains forever young her teacher Carl Jung had adopted the term for psychological purposes to describe the individual who like Peter Pan fails to grow up in one of her lectures von Franz describes the Puri turnus as the individual who remains too long in adolescent psychology that is all those characteristics that are normal in a youth of seventeen or eighteen are continued into later life coupled in most cases with two greater dependence on the mother von Franz predicted that in the coming decades what she called the problem of the pure eat Ernests which spread across the world and affect more and more individuals her predictions have proven remarkably accurate especially among the male population of the Western world many young men are struggling academically socially spiritually financially and sexually they are living at home into their late 20s and 30s choosing to remain in the comforting confines of their parents care rather than testing the unknown waters of independence instead of striving to create something of themselves many prefer the familiar and comfortable virtual worlds of Internet pornography and video games they are passive Wanderers in life with no path or purpose save the pursuit of momentary pleasure to ease their suffering based on the scope of this problem it would not be far-fetched to claim that the problem of the pure eet Ernests is the primary neurosis of the modern age the purpose of this course is to provide an antidote to those who suffer from this problem to do this we are going to provide an in-depth psychological analysis of the pure heat Ernests and building on insights from Carl Jung søren kierkegaard von Franz and others provide practical advice on how to commence on a more responsible enriching successful and independent life path before we examine the psychology of the pure eat earnest it is necessary to take note of the conditions which have given rise to the social problem and toward this end we must discuss how a strong mother complex stunts the maturation of many today for as von Franz notes a man who has a mother complex will always have to contend with his tendencies toward becoming a pure heat Ernest throughout our evolutionary history the mother and father have assumed different parental roles mothers have always interacted with their children more than fathers they maintain more physical contact and are more nurturing comforting and empathetic to the physical and emotional pains and needs of the child this extremely intimate and close relationship with the mother figure creates in the child a lasting emotional mark or a highly resistant psychological bond psychologists call a mother complex the child's experience of the mother writes James Hollis is internalized as a complex an emotionally charged cluster of energy beyond the control of the ego fathers do not create the same bond of dependency with the child instead their role has traditionally been to provide the developing child with resources and protection but just as importantly with guidance more specifically the role of the father has been to help the child break free from their bond of dependency with the mother and so helped him emerge into the world as an independent and functional adult in most cultures throughout history individuals transitioned from adolescence to adulthood with the help of initiatory rites of passage the primary goal of all initiatory rites of passage cross-culturally was to separate the youth from his mother first physically and then psychologically these rites were performed shortly after the onset of puberty and were instituted solely by the elder males of the tribe the cultural father's women were generally banned from observing or participating in these rituals a typical rite of passage as explained by mucha Ali ADA in his book right sans symbols of initiation proceeded as follows in the middle of the night the cultural fathers of the tribe dressed as gods or demons which snatched the youth from his bed this was the last time the youth would see his mother sometimes for months the youth would be taken to a deep cave buried alive or else plunged into some other sort of literal or symbolic darkness the stage represented the symbolic death of the youths childhood the loss of paradise and the joys of irresponsibility it was meant to convey to the youth the message you can't go home again following the symbolic death of childhood a ceremony of rebirth would be performed marking the young adults transformation to a more mature state of being he was subsequently taught by the elders the wisdom and knowledge of the tribe and then sent off into the wilderness where he would spend many months alone struggling for his survival upon his successful return he was welcomed back into the tribe as an adult member the youth from that point on was expected to have overcome his mother complex immaturity and dependency were no longer acceptable given the intensity and sometimes violent nature of these initiation processes it appears as if our ancestors understood that separating a young boy from his mother was a monumental task requiring deliberate measures in the West today there is no equivalent for these rites of passage it has often been said notes mere chat le ADA that one of the characteristics of the modern world is the disappearance of any meaningful rites of initiation lacking cultural father's and rites of initiation the youth today must turn to their personal father to provide them with initiation into adulthood but unfortunately not all fathers can supply their children with this guidance for to do so the father must be strong and independent himself and emotionally present in the child's life he must be able to show by example that there is something worth seeking and struggling for in this world for to successfully encourage a young man to break from the comforts of childhood he needs to be convinced there is somewhere worth going sons also need to watch their father in the world writes James Hollis they need him to show them how to be in the world how to work how to bounce back from adversity they need the activation of their inherent masculinity both by modeling and by direct affirmation in his book finding our fathers Sam Osher incites an expansive study in which only 17% of American men reported having a positive relationship with their father during their youth in most cases the father was physically or emotionally absent reflecting on this statistic the psychotherapist James Hollis writes if this amazing statistic is even close to the truth something large and tragic has happened to one of the critical balances of nature a disruption and a critical balance of human nature is exactly what has happened we live in the epoch of the absent father and many suffer greatly as a result young men are expected to leave the comforts of home to overcome their mother complex and to sculpt a life worth living all without the psychological support of a father is it any wonder that the problem of the pure eat ernest is so prominent in our time but the effects of an absent father are worsened by the impact this situation has on the mother for it produces a situation where firstly the mother tends to become more authoritative in her parenting to compensate for the lack of a masculine figure in the child's life and secondly a failure on the part of the father to provide the mother with a love and support creates in her an emotional hunger which he attempts to satiate through her relationship with her child this situation creates the perfect storm whereby the mother becomes what unions call a devouring mother she over protects and smothers her child and becomes involved in every aspect of his life it is often the case that such a mother despite having the best intentions unconsciously manipulates her child into remaining dependent on her well into adulthood and it is often the case that the child willingly complies behold the secret conspiracy between mother and son Wright's young and how each helps the other to betray life a child brought up in this manner and thus never granted the opportunity to venture out on his own to stand up for himself to fail and fix his own mistakes or to make decisions for himself will develop into an adult crippled in his capacity to endure and overcome the inevitable challenges and struggles of life the healthy desire to adapt himself to reality in to individuate both of which entail fear pain and conflict will be replaced by his need remain bounded to his mother whether it be his personal mother or a symbolic substitute in the world if he does not remain dependent on his biological mother he may desperately seek to find in other women in nurturing replacement or else lose himself in the comforting embrace of an addiction in other words when a child emerges into adulthood with a strong mother complex he will not seek to develop his independence and evolve his consciousness but rather will be possessed by what Jung called the spirit of regression which threatens us with bondage to the mother and with the dissolution and extinction in the unconscious he will find himself in the service of sleep and not the battle of life he hopes to be caught sucked in enveloped and devoured Wright's young he seeks as it were the protecting nourishing charmed circle of the mother the condition of the infant released from every care no wonder that the real world vanishes from sight in the next video we'll provide an in-depth analysis of the psychology of the Puri turnus following this we'll explore how the pure can overcome his problems in order to lead a more independent and fulfilling life you

Channel: Academy of Ideas

Views: 1,749,378

Rating: 4.8918815 out of 5

Keywords: carl jung, academy of ideas, peter pan syndrome, puer aeternus, psychology

Id: AIKgRtmbIkM

Length: 9min 56sec (596 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

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[u/enephon]

I think a lot of comments here are confusing the symptom with the disease. Living at home into adulthood is a symptom, and I don't think that it means everyone that lives at home is a "man-child" nor that every "man-child" lives at home. I'm sure most adults who live with their parents do so because of economic reasons and not because they are emotionally unable to cope with the world, but that doesn't mean it is true of all.

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I do think some of the concepts associated with the man-child are interesting and worth thinking about. The bit about the "devouring mother" was particularly interesting to me because I have seen that but never put a name on it. On the other hand, I'm not sold on the causality. Undoubtedly, the very fast changes we experience in both technology and social norms will have an impact on our social psychology. But the explanation of why this occurs seems to be overly simplified. We treat all children today, at least in the West, very differently than we treated them 100 years ago (or less): we infantilize them longer, we protect them longer, we shelter kids more.

[u/DonkeySkin334]

I don’t get why people are taking the concept of living with your parents so seriously. I took it as a more abstract/symbolic way of saying you depend on someone else or something for the direction your life goes in; you want to be guided, you do not want to do the guiding. This can be applied to any individual irrespective of whether he lives with his parents or not.

[u/Dillywink]

In the video, it is examined how a mother complex and absent father can explain why some men fail to mature psychologically and live an independent and successful life.

This really struck a chord with why it's taken me so long to become more mature and open up my mind to emotional/psychological growth.

The family home isn't considered the property of the oldest patriarchs in this scenario; there is no "my house, my rules" being exerted by the oldest generation. Once the next generation assumes the responsibility of caring for the elders and the family, the elders don't continue to function as caretakers and breadwinners. This video is specifically referring to men who don't ever leave the care of their mothers, "staying at home" is just the physical condition of staying under mom's care. From u/monstron

This is something some of you are getting hung up on. Not the actual meaning, no one should feel hurt by this or think that this says that because they live at home they're automatically a child. It's only speaking of that type of person living at home or that type of person anywhere in life. Being dependent on others for your needs emotionally and understanding true responsibility for yourself and then not growing past this phase in life is what Man-Child is meant to represent in this way.

Edit 2: A perfect summation in what you should take away. From u/rulyono

These things do not necessarily, in and of themselves, mean someone is a man-child:

• Playing video games
• Watching lots of Netflix
• Spending hours on social media
• Watching sports
• Hanging out at a friends house
• Feeling the need to be reassured or validated by a lady
• Drinking alcohol

However doing any of these things repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly could mean the following:

• attempting to disconnect from your problems instead of actually solving them
• avoiding deeper relationship connection with your spouse or kids
• sweeping psychological issues under the rug

The problem is that in modern society we have generations who are OVER using these outlets who are raising the next generation. And here is what we risk sacrificing

• losing many opportunities to serve your local community and/or your immediate family. There are SO SO many needs out there but we never even know they exist
• potentially worsening relationships with spouses. I don't think it's a coincidence that marriage rates for couples are decreasing while divorce rates have increased steadily. It's just so much easier to avoid a spouse who conflicts with you rather than sit down, dig in, talk, and figure out our differences and actually change. Is so easy to feel validation from a woman in the screen when you don't feel it from your wife. Yet it's totally false.
• lose the ability to self discipline. The more we over use these escapes the more we will need them. Man-child syndrome are mental wounds that we bury through Escapism. This affects dozens of other areas of life like physical and mental health.
• We seek identity and safety in the opposite sex rather than our own identity and our sense of security and trust in ourself. The world is a nasty scary place so why bother facing it when "mom" will always make me feel like I'm valuable. "Mom" always makes me feel safe.

There are a couple important things to understand for someone going through this.

1) Pain is OK. It is not something to be avoided. We learn very important lessons in difficult times that we cannot and will not learn in easy times. 2) Fulfillment and true joy are almost exclusively found through meaningful relationships 3) When you avoid or bury problems to feel safe and secure, the problems get worse. They double and triple in size. Imagine you're on a boat that has a water leak. You don't know how to fix water leaks. Someone else can surely fix it. It's way outside your comfort zone. Your also trained and used to feeling comfortable always by the various "mothers" of your life. So you ignore the leak by playing on your phone. Then another leak happens and the water is up to your ankles. You pull your feet out and put earbuds in and play some music or watch a football game. It genuinely, in your psychology feels like you fixed the problem. But you haven't. Then the water gets up to your chest and you can't avoid it any more. But now rather than plugging up a small hole you have to plug multiple holes that are under water. You have to remove hundreds and hundreds of buckets of water. What originally would have taken a few minutes becomes 2 days worth of intense survival. And often it's too late by the time we see the boat is full of water.

Create your own identity. Limit your dependency on needing to feel "disconnected" from your challenges. Seek out meaningful relationships that are built, not fake relationships that have no depth but everyone feels OK on the surface. Face your vulnerability and ask for help doing it.

[u/SkyHigh27]

A long studied (and long debated) topic. The book Iron John by R Bly is a study of these rights of passage practiced by multiple civilizations and told through the story of Iron John, a fable made popular by the brothers Grimm.
If you thought this video was insightful and uncomfortable, you will feel the same about this book.
Iron John: A Book about Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/0306824264/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_v.M.CbY429K51

[u/crinnaursa]

many people are focusing solely on the aspect of living at home I believe this is a mistake

When it comes analyzing his philosophy I think you have to take a contextualist approach. This philosophy is in and of its time. These are ideas that were developed earlier but published in the 50s. so we're talking about ideas that were formulated in western society of the 20s 30s and 40s. Opportunities and social structures were different. So you cannot take the single symptom of living with one's parents as fulfilling the entirety of the diagnostic requirements for perpetual childhood. it is not the act of living at home but the lack of desire to change that situation.

Here the real symptom is impetus or lack thereof. The perpetual child has little to no desire to seek out
The notable qualities of an adult life. Things like individuality self-determination and self-reliance. Co residence is not a required prerequisite for this lac of ambition. Economic needs today May Force cohabitation but that does not mean that there is present the mother-son dynamic that is discussed and the video.

Further a contextual reading of this would take into account the differing societal demands on the mother. A family unit without a strong and present Father figure, during the time in which this was conceptualized, would place the mother at a distinct disadvantage. Shear social and economic need would have affected the co-dependence of mother and son. Today the socio-economic pressures would not be as great and the hungry mother archetype would present itself more in emotional and psychological co-dependence free from economic need.

Really the point I'm making is that on the surface the reading of this material changes based on the time in which it is applied. Taking this into consideration the core concepts can still valid but the outward appearance an expression of these concepts would appear differently. It's better not to be wrapped up in the particulars and try to understand the thought as a hole.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm kind of in that situation right now except the differences are I have a father who I love and has helped me grow as a person through my life but my mother is a devouring mother 100%. I am in the process of breaking away, and it is messy since she is constantly undermining me and my ideas that involve leaving. Either in the form of reminding me I have low income or by asking me too many questions that I can't answer therefore until I can answer those questions I shouldn't move. It's really infuriating. I certainly don't like her anymore. I suppose I still love her in so far as she is my mother but I certainly don't like her anymore. Some times I think about of she died how said I'd be and for how long.

[u/gogogadgetgabi]

What about daughters? 🤔

[u/sammyjamez]

There were instances where I questioned this and I am compelled to agree with the thoughts of these philosophers, but at the same time, I am compelled to say that there must be more research and deep insight about the factors that influence these habits, if there is such a habit at all.

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It is way too complicated to draw to the conclusions that we do not have these initiations anymore (although some would argue that phenomena like going abroad or moving to the university campus or Erasmus to study are small inititation or progresssions towards adulthood and independence) or whether it is because the father-figure is not there to seperate the child from the comforting detachment of the mother.

Is this a cultural issue or maybe a generational issue? (I can use myself as an example. I live in my 20s and I yearn for more independence. It will require more responsibilities and sacrifices but I believe that that is a part of the package for more independence but at the same time, I cannot do it because where I live, the cost of living makes it too expensive to be independent, even if you live in a flat or an apartment where you share with two or three people. So I am stuck where I am right now even though I am aware that there is a chance that the back of my mind is telling me not to take the pludnge because it is more comfortable that way)

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Is it perhaps a psychological or a personal issue like the person was raised in a manner that he/she grew too attached with the parents or with the group and was never taught or never exposed to skills or abilities on how to be more self-reliant? Is it because the person cannot afford it or perhaps the person even chooses not to because he/she cannot afford it? Is it because the person does not have the self-efficacy or the confidence to do it? What if the person wants to not take the risk because he/she desires to keep in touch with his/her inner child, a phenomenon that I personally (IMHO so take it with a pinch of salt) think that it is becoming a growing trend nowadays?

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There are so many in-depth questions here and can possibly lead plenty of different conclusions and probably will be entirely unique because of how unbelievably diverse and complex human beings are even though we often find some patterns or habits that transcendce generations or cultures