What is "puer aeternus"

n. 1 (cx mythology English) A child-god who is forever young. 2 An older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level.

(sometimes shortened to puer) Latin for "eternal boy", in mythology, is a child-god who is forever young. In psychologically, it is an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level. The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. He covets independence and freedom, opposes boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.