You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Ferenczi (1933) called our attention to the capacity of children to become selfobjects or caretakers to their parents in order to defend themselves against the dangers coming from people without self-control. The unmet needs of the child can lead to a more extreme situation such as the “God complex” described by Jones (1913) in which narcissistic features predominate to the point where the individual identifies himself or herself with God. The character traits described by Jones that emanate from this narcissistic identification involve self-effacement, aloofness, a cloud of mystery, and a conviction of immortality. He stresses the “Oedipus situation in which the hero-son is a suffering saviour. With this type the mother plays a part of quite special importance” (p. 263). According to Jones the struggle with an oppressive father is a part and parcel of this situation, with the role of the wicked father displaced on to authority figures; self-sacrifice, humility, and extreme altruism are developed as part of a masochistic solution. Jones emphasizes the importance of the “castration complex” in “this Christ type” (p. 264).
Zaslow (1988), in discussing Ferenczi's paper, believes that this phenomenon of the child becoming parent to his or her parents can begin early in life, “without extreme trauma, but rather by repeated, gradual induction and influence by a parent upon even an infant or toddler whose constitutional type permits it” (p. 219). He continues, “It is my impression that such caretaker personalities, with character traits of seriousness and obsessionality, and tendencies towards a ‘Jesus Christ syndrome’ of living to undo or assume responsibility for others' sins, evolve more from the seemingly minor and subtle [read: inattended to] oppressions of everyday life than from discrete major traumatic situations” (pp. 219-220).
I believe that recent historical scholarship on the life of Jesus makes it quite doubtful that the phenomena described by Jones and later by