The Man Child: On the Mother Complex and the Absent Father*
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. ~Andre Gide Marie-Louis 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. The puer aeternus, which is Latin for “eternal child”, was originally the term used in mythology to refer to a child god who remains forever young. In one of her lectures von
