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"Since a 'mother complex' is a concept borrowed from
psycho- pathology, it is always associated with the idea of injury and illness. But if we take the
concept out of its narrow psycho- pathological setting and give it a wider
connotation, we can see that it has many positive effects as well. Thus a man
with a mother-complex may have a finely differentiated Eros instead of, or in
addition to, homosexuality. (Something of this sort is suggested by Plato in
his Symposium.) This gives him a great capacity for friendship, which often
creates ties of astonishing tenderness between men and may even rescue
friendship between the sexes from the limbo of the impossible. He may have
good taste and an aesthetic sense...He may be supremely gifted as a teacher
because of his almost feminine insight and tact. He is likely to have a
feeling for history, and to be conservative in the best sense and cherish the
values of the past. Often he is endowed with a wealth of religious feelings,
which help to bring the ecclesia spiritualis into reality; and a
spiritual receptivity which makes him responsive to evaluation."
-- Robert Hopcke, Jung, Jungians and Homosexuality
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