The Omnipotent Child Syndrome: The Role of Passionately Held Bad Fits in the Formation of Identity

Abstract

This article explores the hidden somatic passions that get laid down in the earliest bad fits (i.e., misattunements) and become the source of the highly resistant narcissistic behaviors that support and concretize one’s identity. The omnipotent child syndrome is used to define these passionate, somatic, psychic attachments. The “Omnipotent Child,” as I call it, is that part of the internal psychic structure that is the final common pathway of all the passionately held bad fits that characterize not only the person’s object ties and attachments, but also his or her most powerful internal psychic identity. The importance of the exploration and elucidation of preverbal experiences in the group are crucial to the unfolding of these unhealthy attachments. Recent infant research, coupled with neurobiological advances, supports the idea of the formation for these attachments. The author explores the theoretical underpinnings of this syndrome through case examples of the omnipotent child in the group process.