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Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry
ISSN: 0004-8674 (Print) 1440-1614 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ianp20
The Peter Pan and Wendy Syndrome
Carolyn Quadrio
To cite this article: Carolyn Quadrio (1982) The Peter Pan and Wendy Syndrome, Australian
and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 16:2, 23-28
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/00048678209161187
Published online: 06 Jul 2009.
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Australian and New Zealand Journal
of
Psychiatry
(1982)
1623-28
THE
PETER PAN AND WENDY SYNDROME: A
MARITAL DYNAMIC*
CAROLYN
QUADRIO
A
marital system is described which features an unfaithful and
narcissistic husband, Peter Pan, and a long suffering and depressed
wife, Wendy. The dynamics of their individual adjustments are
examined
as
well
as
the symbiotic nature of the dyadic relationship.
Other characters take their parts
-
Tinker
Bell,
Tiger Lily, and Little
Lost
Boys.
Peter's infidelities belie a firm attachment to his Wendy/
mother whilst she depends upon him for protection from forbidden
impulses.
The Story
Peter Pan is an immature, narcissistic man married
to a patient, forbearing and depressed wife, Wendy.
They are usually in their middle thirties when they
present for treatment, usually individually, either
Wendy with a depression
oq
less often, Peter with
a relationship conflict and anxiety. They have been
married between 10 and
20
years and have, on
average, two children.
Peter has never grown up. He continues to live
the life of an adolescent with his considerable
energies divided between studies, sport and
women. The proportion of these three major
interests varies and, eventually, studies may be
supplanted entirely by career. Peter is narcissistic,
very concerned about his appearance, especially his
body, which he keeps slim and fit. He is good
looking in a boyish way and is phobic about illness,
injury and old age. He may be
a
fitness fanatic or
a
devoted sportsman and may spend two to three
weeknights and most weekends pursuing his
sporting interests. His preferences are for speed
sports and non-body contact since he is phobic
about injury as well as uncomfortable with
powerful men. This is a hangover from an archaic
conflict with Captain
Hook
(father) wherein Peter
fantasises that he cut off HOOKS hand (penis) and
has since lived in fear of retribution (castration
anxiety). Consequently, Peter avoids men and
prefers the company of women.
-
Sometimes Peter is a perennial student and may
spend evenings at night school; he may change
careers or may need another diploma. Some Peters
combine both academic and sporting interests and,
along with girlfriends and family, maintain a very
tight schedule necessitating fast action premature
ejaculation). Peter spends little time with his family
and, typically, regards the children as competitors
for the motherly attentions of Wendy. During the
early years of his children's development he leaves
all the parenting to Wendy and even resents their
demands on her time. He may later share some
sporting interests with a son who is now oldez but
this generally creates a very ambivalent situation.
While Peter spends his nights studying, training
and flitting about with Tinker Bell (a cute' little
thing with histrionic tendencies), Wendy sits at
home reading stories to the children, John and
Michael. Whenever he is in trouble, Peter rushes
home to Wendy who sews on his shadow. Since
Peter suffers from severe castration anxiety,
Wendy's ability to re-suture such vital appendages
is a source of great comfort to him.
Wendy is a sufferer, having been bullied at home
or
so
overprotected that she too is phobic about
sexual maturity and maintains the safer role of
'little mother'. Wendy spent her earlier life in the
*
A briefer version of this pa
er
was presented at the
XVIl
Annual Congress
of
the
R.A.!l.Z.C.P.,
Sydney, October
1980.
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24
THE
PETER PAN AND WENDY SYNDROME
seclusion of the nursery playing at ‘little mother‘.
One night Father Darling found her frolicking on
the beds with her younger brothers and for this
unseemly behaviour she was banished from the
nursery
-
it was time to stop fooling around and
grow up! Father Darling was ambivalent about his
desires which he projected onto his pre-pubertal
daughter. For Wendy the experience was a rejection
of herself and her sexuality
-
she never recovers
from this rejection and re-lives the experience in
her marriage with the repetitive rejection rep-
resented by Peter‘s philanderings and by the
repetitive forgiveness with which she meets all
these experiences.
Peter‘s boyishness and his many clever tricks
delight Wendy whose rather dull ‘little mother‘ role
has completely taken over. Especially important is
flying
or,
rather
Fear
of
Flying
(Jong, 1973), which
Peter helps Wendy to overcome with faith and trust
and a liberal sprinkling of his pixie dust (sperm).
Without Peter‘s magic dust Wendy can never hope
to achieve flying.
Wendy knows all about Tinker Bell and the
several mermaids in Mermaid Lagoon, but she
turns a blind eye to these indiscretions. For her
part, Tinker Bell is not
so
forbearing and is given
to spiteful behaviour, often planning to dispose of
Wendy altogether so that she may have Peter all to
herself. Once, after one of these nastier outbursts
by Tink, Wendy walked the plank (took an
overdose) and was rescued by Peter in the nick of
time. Tinker is inclined to upstage Wendy (and
mother figures generally) and may counter by a
more grandiose gesture requiring a response from
all the children in the world (‘clap hands if you
believe in fairies’).
Wendy feels more threatened by Peter‘s relation-
ship with Tiger Lily, a much more serious young
woman than Tinker, and one who manages to
bring out the rescuer in Peter. He insists that Lily
‘really needs’ him and that Wendy should under-
stand that his relationship with Lily is a helping
one. Wendy is rather suspicious of this new-found
paternalism and resentful that she has never
merited the same concern. At this stage Wendy
may falter in her usual forbearance and express
some anger about her oppression, complaining that
she is treated like a squaw whilst Peter is out
celebrating his latest triumph. She may threaten to
leave him to take care of a bunch of other ‘little lost
boys’, or she may join a women’s group. Yet Peter
and Wendy weather this storm, like
so
many
others, and Wendy was only bluffing.
Characteristics
of
Wendy
Clinically, Wendy presents with depression which
she relates to her marriage to Peter who is a
‘faithless husband’, an ‘irresponsible father‘ and
‘won’t grow up’. Her career training is often that of
a nurse or a social worker, reflecting her strongly
developed nurturing role.
Background history reveals that Wendy’s father
was either not involved with the family or was
peripheral in some way
-
e.g. ‘always out with the
boys’, ‘always working’. Wendy’s mother was a
‘mother hen’ or a ‘super mother‘
-
over-involved
and often over-protective with her family, guarding
them from the ‘dangers’ of the outside world, or
from the influence of the ‘bad’ father. Not only is
she a powerful mother-figure, she is described
frequently as both hostile and critical and may
represent a continuing source of conflict in Wendy’s
current life. Another feature of background history
and one which may be quite incidental is a
predominance of female siblings.
Despite her complaints about Peter, despite his
repeated infidelities and his minimal involvement
with the family, Wendy dreads losing him and
fears that a direct confrontation will drive him
away. In fact her continued suffering and her
compensatory over-involvement with the children
are effective both in shutting Peter out of the
family and in replicating the adaptation of her own
mother. She views this as a reaction to Peter‘s
shortcomings and does not perceive the circularity
of the system. By taking over, ‘only because’ Peter
abrogates his responsibilities, she progressively
excludes and undermines his position in the family
system.
Wendy is convinced that she must cling to this
marriage, no matter what, and that she could not
find another man, certainly not one as exciting as
Peter. The truth
is
that she is afraid to abandon her
‘suffering little mother‘ role as this will expose her
to the ‘dangers’ of a real adult sexual relationship.
Wendy’s desires are firmly repressed and she
struggles both to enforce the same repression upon
the desires and freedoms which are projected onto
Peter and, as well, to cling to the symbiosis which
requires that he continue to act out for her the
forbidden impulses.
Treatment
for
Wendy
Depending upon the severity of her initial de-
pression, early therapy must deal with the dynam-
ics of this depression. Presentation varies from mild
to severe and possibly suicidal and, temporally,
from chronic to recent. If Peter has left home and
appears not to be returning, Wendy may be utterly
despairing and suicidal. The symbiosis between
them has been such that Wendy may feel incapable
of functioning without him. She will pass through
the various phases of
a
grief reaction with shock,
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CAROLYN QUADRIO
25
denial, guilt and anger and will be slow to enter
a phase of resolution, tending to oscillate between
rage and despair. Many months later she is all too
willing to forgive Peter and to accept him back into
the family if he is willing. During this period
Wendy usually has custody of the children and
they will be more or less affected by these events.
(v.i.)
Beyond the recent depression there is the more
basic depression that Wendy experiences in regard
to her early relationships and she must work
through earlier losses and issues relating to her
personality structure. In this regard Wendy usually
manifests a passive-aggressive adjustment.
Improving her low self esteem requires that
Wendy develop in herself the qualities that she
attributes to Peter. They have functioned as a
peacock and a dowdy peahen and, rather than
capture him, Wendy needs to do some strutting and
flying of her
own
-
to meet her own narcissistic
needs. This requires resolution of her ambivalent
relationship with a dominating mother and/or
rejecting father, and the transference issues centre
upon Wendy’s view of the therapist as omnipotent,
critical and rejecting. Whilst testing out the reality
of this projection Wendy will need to spread her
wings, to assert herself more directly, and to
abandon her suffering and passivity in favour of
some fun and flying of her own. This requires a
balance of protection from the therapist
so
that
Wendy works towards maturity without either
tipping over into acting out or fleeing from the
expression of forbidden impulses. Maturity of this
sort is quite different from the pseudo-maturity of
the ‘little mother‘ role. As Wendy becomes aware of
the circularity of the system in her marriage and in
that of her parents, she will undergo a radical
change in her feelings and attitudes and will come
to accept responsibility for her part in the current
system.
Characteristics
of
Peter
Pen
Peter presents with ambivalence and anxiety,
wondering whether to leave Wendy and the
children to live with Tink or Tiger Lily. Usually the
decision is being forced upon him by virtue of an
ultimatum (usually from Tink) and his real
preference is to continue with both relationships.
He is difficult to engage in therapy and sessions
may serve only as a delaying tactic i.e. he meets the
ultimatum with promises to ‘sort himself out’. At
this stage conjoint sessions may be preferable to
individual work.
A closer look at the Peters reveals two sub-
groups
-
one consists of successful professional or
business men, the other group are unsuccessful and
tend to vacillate with jobs and careers as they do
with women.
The successful Peter may pursue his narcissistic
involvements in a ‘frenetic manner‘ or a ‘life felt
imperative is often associated with his quests’
(Reich,
1960).
This
activity reflects attempts to
synchronize the self-representation and the ‘grandi-
ose self‘ and has been described by Kohut (1966)
as ‘pseudovitality.
Background history reveals Peter‘s view of his
mother as omnipotent, hostile, castrating or
controlling, described in appropriate terns such as,
‘I
felt squashed’ or ‘chopped down’ by her. The two
sub-groups of Peters have different views of their
fathers
-
the successful Peters described hostile or
extremely rejecting fathers; the other group had
passive fathers who were seen as ‘nice guys’ and as
castrated by mother, again with terms such as ‘she
cut him down’, ‘she squashed him’ etc.
Like Wendy, Peter views his parents’ relationship
within a linear model rather than a circular one,
particularly when the ‘bad’ mother is seen as
overpowering the
‘good’
father. As he recognises
the dynamics of that relationship, he develops
better insight into his own adjustment and into the
splitting of his internal objects.
Peter has difficulty in expressing feelings so that
sex is a substitute for intimacy and distancing is a
passive-aggressive defence. Rarely able to express
anger directly towards his Wendy/mother, he
denies his anger and moves away
to
another
woman.
A
powerful and controlling mother figure
is projected onto Wendy and perpetuates the
hostile dependency which is both denied and
expressed in his ambivalent comings and goings.
When he does move out of home to live with
Tink or Tiger Lily, Peter often experiences severe
separation anxiety and quickly returns home to his
Wendy/mother. The most intense reaction in Peter
is seen when, as occasionally happens, he decides
to move out altogether and live alone while he
resolves his ambivalence. He may then experience
panic of such severity that he not only rushes home
but is sufficiently frightened by his reaction to seek
out psychotherapy. This dramatic response is a
combination of separation anxiety and castration
anxiety (since castration is equated with object loss
in narcissistic personalities). Threatened retribution
from the hostile father, or fear of suffering the same
fate as the passive ‘castrated’ father, is ever
imminent, and Peter‘s behaviour in frequently
risking the retribution of other women’s husbands
is a counter-phobic defence mechanism.
Treatment
of
Peter
Clinically, Peter presents with anxiety and his
personality structure is more or less narcissistic.
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/
26
THE
PETER
PAN
AND
WENDY SYNDROME
Castration anxiety and separation anxiety are
prominent and underlie the recurrent anxieties he
experiences regarding women, career and health.
Hypochondriasis is common and reflects castration
anxiety and narcissistic cathexis of the self as
object.
Treatment will focus upon the passive-aggressive
nature of his relationships with women and
his
fears of dependency and intimacy. Narcissistic lack
of differentiation threatens Peter with fusion or
dissolution of the self in a close relationship and
leads to awareness of anger towards his mother, his
lack of separation from her and a sense of betrayal
by her. In the transference this is expressed by
abrupt terminations
of
therapy, last minute cancel-
lations and denial of anger or fear. Peter is quick
to experience betrayal and conjoint or congruent
therapy with Wendy or with Tinker may be
abandoned because of the therapist’s alleged
betrayals
(‘So
Peter was wrong about mothers;
indeed there is no subject on which he is
so
likely
to be wrong’). As with his relationships generally,
Peter may idealize the therapist initially, but later
experience disillusionment and anger. He will
usually return after ‘punishing’ the therapist with a
suitable period of absence.
Peter must also confront his competitiveness with
and fear of father figures and his denial of an
introjected angry father or his fear of fusing with
the emasculated father. Like Wendy, he will come
to see the circular system of his parents’ marriage
and then his own and this will alter his attitudes
and feelings.
Whether those difficulties described in the
therapy are a function of this particular therapist’s
style of working, or of this therapist’s gender
(female), or whether they reflect the nature of Peter
himself is uncertain. Probably all of these factors
are significant as well as the fact that there are
strong social reinforcements for his mode of
adjustment, particularly with the successful Peter,
just as social pressures reinforce ‘acting in’ rather
than ‘acting out’ for Wendy.
Conjoint
Therapy
Peter and Wendy illustrate a particular variety of a
more general and more basic marital dynamic
-
the qualities of the spouse which were once most
desired become most despised. Often the spouse
embodies those qualities which are ‘missing’ from
the personality of the other (repressed) and the
mistake is to marry the desired or forbidden
qualities rather than to develop or to acknowledge
them in oneself.
Thus Wendy longs to experience the free spirit
which she once loved in Peter and which she
alternately desires then challenges. Peter yearns for
the security and nurturance he once loved in
Wendy and which is at once a haven and a prison
for him. In the face of conflict each polarizes into
a more extreme position
so
that each becomes even
more a ‘part person’ rather than a ’whole person’
and the symbiosis intensifies along with the
conflict. Wendy’s frustration leads her to an
increasingly ‘parental’ position with Peter
-
an
‘angry mother‘ dealing with a ‘naughty boy’ and
Peter‘s response is to flee to a less critical and more
comforting woman. He becomes even more elusive.
Narcissistic Personality
The Peter Pans generally manifest some degree
of narcissistic personality and may merit the
official designation of Narcissistic Personality
Disorder (301.81) as defined in the DSM-111. The
latter definition is a lengthy one and includes the
following relevant features:
‘a grandiose sense of self-importance
.
.
,
need
for constant attention and admiration
. .
.
feelings of entitlement interpersonal ex-
ploitiveness, relationships that alternate between
the extremes of idealization and devaluation
.
.
.
an ambition that cannot be satisfied
. .
.
For
example, a man repeatedly becomes involved
with women he alternately adores and despises
. . .
Frequently, many of the features of Histri-
onic, Borderline and Antisocial Personality Dis-
orders are present
.
.
.
preoccupation with
grooming and remaining youthful
.
.
.
with
aches and pains and other physical symptoms.’
Tho
of the most prominent exponents of nar-
cissistic personality structure and dynamics are
Kernberg and Kohut. Although there are important
differences in their theoretical standpoints there are
basic similarities in their clinical descriptions and
Kernberg offers the following account:
‘.
. .
a superficially smooth social adaptation, but
with serious distortions in their internal re-
lationships with other people
. . .
intense
ambitiousness, grandiose fantasies, feelings of
inferiority, and over dependence on external
admiration and acclaim. Along with feelings of
boredom and emptiness, and continuous search
for gratification of strivings for brilliance,
wealth, power and beauty, there are serious
deficiencies
in
their capacity to love
.
.
.
Chronic
uncertainty and dissatisfaction about themselves
. . .
exploitiveness and ruthlessness
.
. .
chronic,
intense envy and defences against such envy’.
(Kernberg, 1974)
In the same paper, the viewpoints of Kohut and
Kernberg are nicely compared and contrasted.
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CAROLYN
QUADRIO
21
Tiger
Lily
and Tinker Bell
Sometimes, it is the other woman in Peter‘s life who
presents for treatment, usually depressed, some-
times suicidal.
Tinker is histrionic, has unresolved incestuous
desires and remains in competition with mother
figures (Wendy) for father‘s love. She is given to
spiteful and vindictive acting out and may feel
murderously angry towards Wendy. When thwarted
by Peter, Tinker is likely to act out her fury in
dramatic ways such as posting to Wendy his gift of
roses (since faded) together with
his
underpants
(left at her apartment)
or,
taking an overdose and
collapsing in the crowded waiting room of a Dr
Peter Pan’s surgery. Her treatment must aim at
unresolved Oedipal issues
so
that she develops a
sense of personal worth and power as a woman
rather than as a love object for father/Peter.
Tiger Lily is more like Wendy although mani-
festing a less well-developed ‘little mother‘ role and
a more strongly developed victim position. Usually
she has perceived profound rejection from her own
father and continues to experience hurt and
disappointment in affairs with married men. At the
end of each of these affairs she is left feeling
abandoned and rejected and wondering what is
wrong with her. These episodes lead to self hate
and then to self-destructive indulgence in drugs,
alcohol or promiscuity. She expects nothing,
receives little and is
a
serious suicide risk.
Lost Boys and Other Characters
Since both Peter and Wendy function at a level
of
considerable personality immaturity their children
may encounter a variety of problems. Frequently,
one of the children begins to function as the
‘parent’ in the family and then manifests neurotic
symptoms.
In
one extreme case the
20
year old son
presented with a schizophrenic illness and in
family therapy it was apparent that his parents
were
so
entrenched in this syndrome that after
twenty years of marriage and then five years of
divorce, they were still struggling with the same
conflicts. Since father was still flitting in and out
and mother was still alternately driving him out
and then taking him back, it was not surprising
that their son was very confused and that his
illness had become a way of stabilizing the family
around him.
James Matthew Barrie
-
Creator
of
Peter
Pan
Certain themes recur
in
Bame’s works, particularly
regarding characters who don’t grow up or who
remain childlike in some aspect. Peter Pan himself
is
the prototype: ‘I’m youth, I’m joy’, but there
is
also Tommy in the novel
Sentimental Tommy
and
its sequel,
Tommy and Grizel.
In fact, Grizel says
about Tommy what our present-day Wendys say
about Peter and his affairs
-
‘He did not love her.
Not as I love him
. . .
Not as married people ought
to love, but in the other way he loves me dearly..
.
He was a boy who could not grow up’.
Also, ‘And boys cannot love. Oh, is it not cruel
to ask a boy to love.’
‘Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire’ and ‘Mary Rose’ are other
characters who remain childlike, whilst the theme
of unconsummated marriage in
Walker, London
and the
Admirable Crichton
is very close to home
for Bame.
In
Margaret Ogilvy
(his mother) Barrie says:
‘Nothing that happens after we are twelve matters
very much’, suggesting that his penchant for
characters who don’t grow up reflected his own
difficulties in passing beyond puberty and
in
separating from his mother. These difficulties are
obvious in his personal history. James Barrie was
born
in
1860, the ninth of 10 children, eight
surviving, to parents who were pious, industrious,
God-fearing Scots. When James was six-years-old
his life was altered dramatically by the accidental
death of his brother, David, on the eve of David’s
14th birthday. David was his mother‘s favourite and
her grief was profound and unremitting. It seems
that the young Jamie decided then that he would
replace David, that he would restore a smile to his
mother‘s face and that he would earn her love by
acquiring fame and fortune. He would sit on her
bed telling her stories, playing amusing games and
thus developing his great talent for delighting and
entertaining. Along with this went the sorrow of
being a substitute for a dead child and, perhaps the
cost of remaining himself forever part-child.
Barrie’s father was a severe, distant, hardworking
man who became increasingly taciturn and in-
accessible with age. Margaret Ogilvy was
puritannical
in
the extreme and taught her son that
the finest relationship was that between parent and
child, whilst what occurred between husband and
wife was ‘regrettable but necessary‘ (Dunbar, 1970).
Here, in essence, is the scripting that Barrie lived
to the letter
-
an unconsummated marriage but
the acquisition of children by taking over another
family.
Throughout his life Barrie experienced a series
of infatuations with beautiful women, particularly
actresses. Although none of these affairs is known
to have become overtly sexual, he was given to
writing passionate love-letters. Mary Ansell was an
actress whom he courted for several years (Mary
growing very impatient) and married shortly before
his mother‘s death. Mary‘s forbearance was re-
warded only by her husband’s indifference (iclud-
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28
THE
PETER
PAN
AND
WENDY
SYNDROME
ing sexual), his long silences, his engrossment with
his work and his continued infatuations with other
women. Finally, Barrie’s obsessive preoccupation
with a Mrs Davies exceeded the limits of his wife’s
tolerance and Mary turned for comfort to a much
younger man. She divorced her husband and
contracted a brief and unsuccessful mamage but,
with characteristic generosity, Barrie continued
thereafter to provide for her.
During this time Barrie had met Sylvia
Llewellyn Davies and her young boys with whom
he played daily in Kensington Gardens. The
pirates and bandits of his boyhood games returned
to delight and fascinate the Davies boys and to
become immortalized in Bame’s writings
-
The
Little White Bird, The Boy Castaways
of
Black
Lake Island, Peter and Wendy, Peter Pan. In
typically possessive fashion Bame took over the
family and became deeply (and platonically)
attached to Sylvia. At first Mr Davies objected but,
tragically, he developed a fatal malignancy and
perhaps was relieved to leave his five boys in good
hands. Then, even more tragically, Sylvia too died
of cancer only three years later and Bame
continued to accept total responsibility for ‘my
boys’.
Later Bame became intensely (and again
platonically) attached to Lady Cynthia Asquith,
daughter-in-law of the former Prime Minister and
another beautiful woman and aspiring actress. He
persuaded her to become his personal secretary
and ‘Dearest Mulberry‘ and she functioned in this
capacity for 19 years. Lady Asquith was married
and had three sons and a husband who protested
occasionally but did not suceed in removing the
strange little man from his household (Bame was
only
5’1”
tall). Again, Barrie commandeered the
family and it was either his fierce possessiveness or
his generosity with money (the Asquiths were
strughng financially) that overcame Herbert
Asquith’s objections.
Even in 1934 when he was 74-years-old, Barrie
developed another infatuation with a young
actress, Elisabeth Bergner, and began ‘his usual
Dulcinean letters
. .
.
the kind of letters he had
been writing to attractive women all
his
adult life’
(Dunbar, 1970). For her he wrote his last play and
greatest fiasco, The Boy David. Bame then became
increasingly depressed and hypochondriacal, de-
manding that Lady Asquith be at
his
side
constantly. She became exhausted with nursing
him but whenever she left he would immediately
develop symptoms. His physicians diagnosed ‘hys-
teria’. Lady Asquith cared for him until his death
in 1937.
In Mary Ansell can be seen a combination of the
roles
of
Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily and Wendy, while
Mrs Davies and Lady Asquith were very much
‘Wendy-birds’ who were ‘abducted‘ with their boys
just as Wendy and the boys were taken from their
nursery to Never-Never Land.
There are parallels between the sexual imma-
turity
of Bame with his regular infatuations and
his intense attachments; the behaviour of the
literary Peter Pan; and the adjustments of the Peter
Pans described
in
the clinical syndrome. A major
difference is the sexual activity of the latter group,
but it is important to consider that abstinence as an
expression of sexual immaturity may have been
more appropriate in the Victorian era. Certainly,
Barrie’s ambivalence towards women was intense
and he was perfectly faithful to his mother‘s
scripting by becoming a parent without becoming
a mate.
It is not intended to present a complete analysis
of Bame or of his Peter Pan. What is presented
provides insights into the personality and history of
the man and the influence of these upon his literary
creations. Readers may enjoy their own specu-
lations and may concur with some of his biogra-
phers (Dunbar 1970; Green 1960) that Barrie
himself was part Peter Pan.
Conclusion
The Peter Panmendy relationship may appear
to
be an unstable one, but this is a superficial view.
There is a strong symbiosis between the two and
Peter‘s frequent affairs are based in a firm
attachment to his Wendy/mother whose support
and nurturance are vital. Wendy’s impatience with
his behaviour is equally superficial and underlying
this is
a
firm dependence upon Peter to continue
acting out the forbidden impulses and to protect her
from the evils and temptations of the world of adult
relationships.
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CAROLYN QUADRIO,
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F.R.A.N.z.c.P,,
D.P.M
18 Alvan Street,
Mt. Lawley,
West Australia.
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