Infantilism

The term ‘infantilism’ circulates through the depth-psychology corpus along two distinct but interlocking axes. The first is clinical-theoretical: Freud and his immediate school employ it as a diagnostic category designating the persistence of archaic libidinal fixations, polymorphous dispositions, and omnipotence fantasies into adult life — neurotic infantilism being, in Freud’s own index entries, virtually synonymous with developmental inhibition. The second axis is meta-psychological and polemical: Jung turns the term against the Freudian framework itself, arguing in ‘Civilization in Transition’ and the ‘Essays on a Science of Mythology’ that a ‘theory of infantilism’ can become an instrument of reductive deflation, allowing both analyst and compliant patient to dissolve serious existential and spiritual claims into nothing-but explanations. Von Franz extends this critique through the puer aeternus literature, distinguishing the genuinely regressive ‘infantile shadow’ from the legitimate childlike dimension of the psyche. Moore and Hillman complicate matters further by rehabilitating immaturity as a valid soul-register, warning against the sentimental creed of endless growth. The tension the corpus sustains — between infantilism as pathological arrest demanding transformation, and childlikeness as an irreducible archetypal value — gives the term its enduring diagnostic and hermeneutic charge in depth-psychological thought.

In the library 15 passages

a theory of infantilism is welcomed by the doctor from the start… numberless patients who, with a great show of coyness, are at bottom only too ready to subscribe to the infantilism theory, because it gives them a broad hint of how to pass off the disturbing ‘infantilism’ as a ‘nothing but.’

Jung argues that the Freudian theory of infantilism serves the defensive interests of both analyst and patient, functioning as a reductive tool that forecloses genuine engagement with the personality.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Civilization in Transition, 1964thesis

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Infantilism, neurotic, 17

Freud’s own index for ‘Totem and Taboo’ classifies neurotic infantilism as a core concept, placing it alongside incestuous object-choice and developmental inhibition as foundational pathological categories.

Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo, 1913thesis

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the little prince represents this world of childhood and therefore is the infantile shadow… From the moment the little prince lands on the earth, he is not quite the infantile shadow anymore because something has touched reality.

Von Franz deploys ‘infantile shadow’ to distinguish regressive fixation on childhood from the transformative potential activated when the archetypal child principle makes contact with lived reality.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, 1970supporting

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the little prince represents this world of childhood and therefore is the infantile shadow… he is not quite the infantile shadow anymore because something has touched reality.

In the parallel Puer Aeternus text, von Franz employs the same formulation to demonstrate how the infantile shadow can be redeemed through grounding in concrete experience.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood, 1970supporting

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the alcoholic’s dependence upon the chemical alcohol as in service to his infantile quest for grandiose omnipotence, although A. A. literature simplifies the concept by calling it ‘playing God.’

Kurtz applies the depth-psychological concept of infantile omnipotence fantasy to the alcoholic’s pathological dependence, illustrating how the clinical notion of infantilism migrated into addiction theory.

Kurtz, Ernest, Not God A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2010supporting

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There is an infantile, sentimental, paradisiacal atmosphere, an innocence which is not the integrity of the simpleton but a kind of unreal paradise, a kindergarten, a delusional world with protecting angels.

Von Franz distinguishes authentic inner integrity from infantile sentimentality — a ‘kindergarten attitude’ that mistakes arrested psychological development for spiritual innocence.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974supporting

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the patients have not reached the normal attitude of a man towards a woman, and his sexuality shows a number of infantile traits. To put this more accurately: the patients have normal feelings in so far as their l

Abraham employs ‘infantile traits’ in the strictly Freudian developmental sense, equating libidinal infantilism with inhibited psychosexual maturation manifest in specific relational and erotic incapacities.

Abraham, Karl, Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis, 1927supporting

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Prostitutes exploit the same polymorphous, that is, infantile, disposition for the purposes of their profession; and, considering the immense number of women who are prostitutes… this same disposition to perversions of every kind is a general and fundamental human characteristic.

Freud explicitly equates polymorphous perversity with the infantile disposition, establishing infantilism as the universal psychosexual substrate from which adult normality and pathology alike develop.

Freud, Sigmund, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905supporting

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Sometimes we may need to stop growing. We may need to backstep and regress. Growth, so often these days assumed automatically to be a goal in psychology and in life in general, can become a sentimental value that overlooks the necessity of such things as stagnancy and slippage.

Moore, following Hillman, rehabilitates regression and immaturity as soul-legitimate states, implicitly challenging the pathologizing of infantilism as always-already developmental failure.

Moore, Thomas, Care of the Soul Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition: A Guide, 1992supporting

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The restoration of the childish shadow to the ideal of childlikeness would return to wholeness its affliction and weakness, and to the imaginal both its psychopathological distortions and the hard work of actualization.

Hillman argues for integrating the ‘childish shadow’ — the infantile, afflicted dimension — into the idealized childlike, treating infantilism not as refuse to be eliminated but as a constituent of wholeness.

Hillman, James, Mythic Figures, 2007supporting

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Paul (1 Corinthians 14: 20) who appeals for childlikeness of heart but will not have childishness of mind… Augustine: ‘For childhood is set before us to imitate humility, and childhood is set before us to beware of foolishness.’

Hillman traces the childish/childlike polarity back to classical and patristic sources, providing the archetypal background against which depth psychology’s debate over infantilism is situated.

Hillman, James, Mythic Figures, 2007supporting

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Freud has succeeded in tracing the psychology of the adult genetically far back into childhood. Starting always with the assumption that the reactions of children, babies, indeed all living beings are identical with those of adults, the difference being that children are prevented from asserting their original longings for omnipotence.

Ferenczi identifies and critically examines the foundational Freudian assumption underpinning infantilism theory: that adult psychology is adult psychology repressed, with children harbouring omnipotence longings identical in kind to those of grown persons.

Ferenczi, Sándor, The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi, 1932supporting

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We like to imagine that our primitive traits have long since disappeared without trace. In this we are cruelly disappointed, for never before has our civilization been so swamped with evil.

Jung situates the persistence of primitive, infantile character traits within civilizational analysis, implying that the denial of infantilism at the collective level has catastrophic moral consequences.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Symbols of Transformation, 1952aside

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hysterical: behaviour, and infantile disposition

The index pairing of hysterical behaviour with ‘infantile disposition’ in Symbols of Transformation reflects the classical psychoanalytic equation of hysteria and libidinal regression.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Symbols of Transformation, 1952aside

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