Abstract
This paper interprets the story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 using the lens of psychoanalytic theory—Winnicott’s concept of True Self and Stolorow/Atwood’s model of intersubjectivity—arguing that, for modern readers, the Canaanite woman and Jesus suggest new possibilities for being human. This full humanity results from both of them moving from False Self to True Self and from the mutuality that characterizes their interaction. This reader-response interpretation leads to new understandings of: (1) loving self—seeing ourselves as empowered, refusing compliance as a response to oppression; (2) loving other—overturning the self/other paradigm to regard all individuals in terms of their humanity; and (3) loving God—learning to be in mutual and authentic relationship with God.
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Notes
The story appears also in Mark 7:24–30, presumably the source of Matthew’s version. But the author of Matthew has altered key elements of the story: (1) the woman, named in Mark as “Syrophoenician,” is here called “Canaanite,” most likely to heighten her marginalized status by associating her with the traditional enemy of Israel; (2) in both versions, the woman addresses Jesus as “Lord,” yet only in Matthew does she refer to him as “Son of David,” a title Matthew uses frequently to describe the “earthly” Jesus (Kingsbury 1976); and (3) in Mark’s version, Jesus’ response to the woman does not include him ignoring her, nor does it mention the disciples suggesting she be sent away. Although this paper does not focus on the author and historical context of the passage—or the possible motivations Matthew may have had for making these changes—it is interesting to note the differences between the two versions of the story.
Harry Guntrip, another member of the British object relations school who followed the work of Winnicott, also implies the existence of a True Self present from birth who, given the proper environment, will emerge. Guntrip sees the mother’s genuine self-giving as crucial for the development of the self, and he obliquely connects this giving with religious experience (see Guntrip 1971, pp. 104, 124).
Several other theorists whose ideas about intersubjectivity can inform this reading of the Canaanite woman-Jesus interaction include Franz Rosenzweig, who claims the importance of asymmetry, tension, and lack of consensus to keep a dialogue going, and Mikhail Bakhtin, who proposes the idea of co-authorship that “demands evaluation of the other, struggle with the other and judgment of the message of the other” (Marková 2003, p. 256). Jessica Benjamin’s concept of intersubjectivity as a two-way street—a mutual, reciprocal interaction between two individuals, in which each experiences the other as connected, yet distinct—describes the interaction between the woman and Jesus. In this construct, there is no subject-object relationship; both are active subjects responsible for the interaction that occurs (2006, pp. 125–126). And Fathali M. Moghaddam’s description of four different types of inter-group relations in his theory of “interobjectivity”—“the understandings that are shared within and between cultures about social reality”—can offer insights about the conflict of cultures brought by the woman and Jesus in this exchange (Moghaddam 2003, p. 221).
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Baffes, M.S. What Do We Do With This Jesus? A Reading of Matthew 15:21–28 through the Lens of Psychoanalytic Theory. Pastoral Psychol 63, 249–263 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-013-0583-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-013-0583-z