A messiah complex (also known as the Christ complex or savior complex) is a state of mind in which an individual holds a belief they are, or are destined to become, a savior. The messiah complex does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
Famous quotes containing the words messiah and/or complex:
“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 1:18,19.
“When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)