ABSTRACT
This book develops an alternative theory of the puer aeternus as a dynamic concept, which through the return to youth of King's writer-protagonists, makes it possible to investigate psychological development in adolescence. This book presents King's transcendent writers as a positive manifestation of the puer aeternus. They illustrate that stories are a creative form of self-exploration and that individuation is not a one-way but a two-way process. The return of King's adult writers is not regressive but prospective; it triggers their psychological development.
