Peter Pan syndrome is the name used to refer to those adults who continue to behave like children or adolescents, in addition to not having the ability to take responsibility for their actions and adulthood in general. Generally, these individuals present an outright refusal to grow up with a marked emotional immaturity that is tinged with a deep-rooted insecurity and a great fear of not being loved and accepted by society.
This term has been accepted within popular psychology since a book titled The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up was published in 1983, which in Spanish means "The Peter Pan syndrome, the man who never grows up.", an artwork of Dr. Dan Kiley. To date there is no evidence to show that Peter Pan syndrome is an existing psychological pathology and therefore it is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders of the Mind.
This syndrome is much more frequent in males and is generally associated with problems to provide security to another individual, this is because these types of people are the ones who need to feel protected by others. This disables them to a great extent, since it overloads their personal development and makes their social relationships very difficult, being related to intense feelings of loneliness and feelings of dependency.
Peter Pan syndrome is associated with significant alterations in the emotions and behaviors of the affected subject. From an emotional point of view, high levels of anxiety and sadness are very common, the latter managing to take the form of depression when they are not treated by a professional. In the same way, the person feels little fulfilled with their life, since the fact of not having responsibilities or not assuming them also makes them not enjoy the challenges, which undoubtedly affects the levels of self-esteem.
In the most extreme and extravagant cases, thought disorders such as delirium may appear, although in these cases, it is most likely that there is a psychiatric disorder that gives it a reason for being.
