ABSTRACT
A whole generation of therapists has favored the model of the developing child as the road map for the evolution of the personality. The language of ``personal growth'' belongs to this developmental model. The idea that we ``grow,'' as a child grows (or as the economy grows), has come to replace what used to be imagined as the deepening of experience and the lifelong quest for wisdom. Approaches based on the monomyth of the inner child have let the wounds, the needs, the vulnerabilities of the inner child create a tyrannical divinity, the exact replica of a repressive monotheism. ``God the Father,'' the jealous and omnipotent patriarchal deity, has been replaced by ``God-the-Child,'' equally possessive and omnipotent. A whole generation of young adults won't grow up, caught betwixt and between the Child and the Adult, and the consequences of their failure is tragic for them as for the rest of society. This proliferation of infantile adults is unprecedented in history and typical of af¯uent societies. Good kids, intelligent, educated, competent in many areas, just won't leave adolescence. The problem has been analyzed from the perspective of sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economy, and the general conclusion seems to be that it is a byproduct of the unprecedented wealth of rich nations. Moreover, failure to mature is not limited to contemporary adolescents; it involves adults as well and is felt as a problem of civilization.
