ABSTRACT
Ruthless violence is a fundamental, immediate, and substantial response to any threat to the self with the aim of negating this source of danger. Threats to the infant's psyche and/or physical survival normally mobilize ruthless aggression directed towards the object that is perceived as dangerous. The threat might be experienced as a direct assault, engulfment, smothering, or abandonment to starve. When the line of development from self-preservative aggression to the libidinalization of aggression progresses to the intensification of sadism, the psychic groundwork is laid for the use of sadism as a solution to neurotic or psychotic conflicts. When the mother's sadism fails to defend her against what she experiences as her child's persecution, she is at risk of relying upon ruthless aggression or its psychic equivalent. The child's wellbeing is then no longer relevant to the mother. The mother's only concern is negating or eliminating any aspect of the child that poses a threat to her survival.
