Provisional life

1. Etymology

Provisional life names an attitude toward life that is more or less imaginary, not rooted in the here and now, commonly associated with puer-aeternus psychology.

2. Plain summary

Sharp ties the term to puer psychology—life lived as if temporary, uncommitted to present reality. Samuels (under puer): perennial adolescence leading to provisional life; von Franz on difficulty settling; Hillman on positive puer destiny/meaning (follower literature—flagged secondary). House dual-path: detail of the eternal youth lives on puer-aeternus; this lemma keeps Sharp’s attitude-name.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common provisional-life motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
imaginary / not here-and-now; puer association; fear of being caught; ever starting anew; dual-stamp puer-aeternus; vs rooted commitment.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology provisional life is unrooted attitude linked to puer—Sharp short. Prefer dual-stamp puer-aeternus; no invented CW for this short lemma.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Provisional life. A term used to describe an attitude toward life that is more or less imaginary, not rooted in the here and now, commonly associated with puer psychology.

(Sharp, 1991) — no CW pointer

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — under puer aeternus pp. 124–125

But the puer has a positive side as well. Along with the perennial adolescence that leads to the provisional life, Hillman (1979) saw in the puer a vision of 'our own first natures, our primordial golden shadow... our angelic essence as messenger of the divine'.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, pp. 124–125) Dual puer-aeternus.

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

No new provisional-life-only §5 leaf this pass. Dual-stamp only from puer-aeternus (already FOLDED; do not rewrite):

Samuels puer aeternus pp. 124–125 Sharp provisional / unverified (no CW on vessel Sharp extract).

See also: puer-aeternus; mother-complex; individuation; persona; senex.

References

Jung, C. G. (1968). The psychology of the child archetype. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 9, Pt. 1). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1940)

Jung, C. G. (1968). Aion. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 9, Pt. 2). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.