Today there is a crisis of masculinity. Many men are struggling socially, spiritually, financially, and sexually. They are living at home into their late 20s and 30s, choosing to remain in the comfortable confines of their parents’ care instead of testing the uncertain waters of independence. Rather than taking risks in the real world and struggling to create something of themselves, many men are losing themselves in the virtual worlds of social media, pornography, and video games. Such men are passive drifters with no path or purpose, save the pursuit of momentary pleasure to distract from suffering.
In 1959, the Swiss psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz delivered a series of lectures examining the psychology of this type of man, as she observed:
“…he 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 too great a dependence on the mother.”
Marie-Louise von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus
In this course, I present a provocative thesis: that many men suffer from a psychological affliction I call the man-child neurosis – which is a condition rooted in a negative mother complex. Drawing from a diverse range of thinkers, and weaving together insights from psychology and mythology – especially the archetype of the Terrible Mother – I explore how a negative mother complex develops and gives rise to unconscious, regressive forces that sabotage a man’s capacity for self-reliance, discipline, and production action. I also examine why this neurosis has become so widespread in our time, and offer practical wisdom on how to overcome it and commence on the road to heroic manhood.
So let us turn to the first chapter, where we examine how, due to the intensity of the early relationship with the mother, throughout his development boy must battle with and overcome regressive yearnings, if he hopes to achieve manhood.
“The mother-child relationship is certainly the deepest and most poignant one we know.…(the child) is part of the psychic atmosphere of the mother.”
Carl Jung, Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
To understand the origins of the man-child neurosis, we must delve into the dynamics of the child’s early relationship with the mother. For as we will explore, while the mother-child bond is critical to a child’s survival and well-being, the intensity of this early bond deposits regressive forces in the psyche of the developing boy, which must be overcome lest he succumb to the man-child neurosis.
