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The Notion of the puer aeternus archetype was first described by Jung in Symbols of transformation (JUNG 5). He borrowed the term from Ovid's Metamorphoses where Ovid spoke of the child god Bacchus as the puer aeternus or eternal youth. In analytical psychology the term has come to describe a normal developmental phase in adolescence, but which when prolonged leads to a syndrome which BAYNES (1) has described as the ‘provisional life’. HILLMAN (4) has written on the puer aeternus from the analytical and historical perspective, HENDERSON (3) has written about it in terms of the initiation process, and VON FRANZ (2) has used a literary figure, Antoine de St Exupery, to describe the clinical aspects of the identification.
The impetus for writing this paper has come mainly from the monograph of von Franz. Her study leads one to assume that if one is identified with the puer aeternus archetype beyond adolescence the chance for the resolution of this problem is not good. The following detailed clinical presentation is an attempt to counteract this overtly pessimistic view of the young man identified with the puer aeternus archetype. (Some data have been sufficiently altered to prevent identification.)
At the beginning of analysis the patient was thirty-five years old and married. He was independently wealthy, never had to work, and his life seemed like one long summer vacation from college. He kept busy by dabbling with his numerous hobbies. One had the definite impression that everything was still a possibility, but nothing was quite actual. As everything was so provisional I had grave doubts whether he would continue in therapy, and this was reinforced by my own and others’ negative prejudice towards the severe puer aeternus problem. The event precipitating his request for therapy had to do with a severe marital crisis, and initially the patient and his wife were seen conjointly. The sessions were stormy, and on more than one occasion she threw her rings to the floor and