“It’s the best way to let go of your life.” these adults who refuse to let go of childhood

Every family or group of friends considers at least one of its members to be a “big kid.” The same person who in adulthood avoids any responsibility, constraints, avoids administrative tasks, does not know how to keep his seriousness… This is what the American psychoanalyst Dan Kyle calls “Peter Pan syndrome”, meaning: the story of an eternal little boy in his imaginary land. Due to the lack of studies on the topic, this term, which was theorized in 1983 by this same psychoanalyst, is not recognized by the scientific community. However, we know that it means anxiety associated with the idea of ​​transitioning from childhood to adulthood. “We all go through a more or less similar period at the dawn of our 20s,” says clinical psychologist Eudes Semeria, whose primary research focuses on how we become adults (1). It can be considered that this syndrome affects us if after 25 years we still do not accept the adult world with its responsibilities and limitations.