Peter Pan syndrome

If you are an adult and have child or adolescent behaviors that do not match your chronological age, you may be facing Peter Pan syndrome. It is a personality development disorder where the person refuses to take the step of time and to take responsibility for his role as an adult.

The term was coined by psychologist Dan Kiley in 1983.

Is Peter Pan being immature?
In a way, yes. This syndrome is characterized by aspects of social and psychological immaturity and especially affects men. Women talk about the Wendy complex (Peter Pan's adventure companion), with complementary features, where the emphasis on personal fulfillment is placed entirely on the realization of a couple, and they can not be visualized in the other social roles - although the perform by force.

To give a picture, a typical Peter Pan: it is the case of those who present a narcissistic personality, capricious, childish and with information processing systems and interpersonal relationships that do not look as age-appropriate. They get angry for everything, throw tantrums like a baby for petty things and have no self-criticism or put themselves in the place of the other.

This occurs because although the subject grows and develops, his internal perception of the self (the basis of his psychic structure) remains in childhood.

Other features common to those suffering from Peter Pan syndrome are: marked rebellion; anger; irresponsibility; dependence even on the simplest things; no acceptance of aging and the passage of years; tendency to transgress norms and laws; little empathy; they are manipulators with their temper tantrums - like children - and do not assume their full responsibility as adults.

The most obvious way in which a Peter Pan manifests is that he does not accept the rules, is capricious in the extreme and can not establish mature links with other people. Not even in a love relationship: play at being the child who thinks he still is; to generate emotional dependence to another; to want to manipulate it, and that things go their way.

As an approximation, although a person with Peter Pan syndrome does not fully assume it, at times there is a certain sensation that does not fit with his real age, and with the way in which he transmitss his life experiences.

Thus, this causes anxiety, hysteria (very visible in the way it relates to others), some crisis, even depression, exacerbated by a feeling of emptiness. When feeling nostalgia for childhood, this affects their self-esteem.

What to do
As it is a structural neurosis, although it is difficult to specify a way to face it, the first step is to work on the basis of the person accepting his infantilism.

From there, with a process that is usually slow, they could begin to modify behaviors. This is particularly difficult, since it refuses to accept itself as a Peter Pan: for the person it is natural to resist abandoning childhood, and he is not aware that he is failing in his passage to the adult world.

The indicated thing is to face a professional psychotherapy; Encourage yourself to deeply explore the reasons for your Peter Pan syndrome. Gradually, the person could mature and accept the passage of time, and thus, reconcile with the adult that is.