ABSTRACT
In 1934, James Strachey put forth his concept of the “mutative interpretation”, and referred to how the superego is tempered by successive re-introjections of transference projections purposely modified by the analyst, a concept similar to Bion’s notion of maternal reverie. There is always a continuous effort in psychoanalytic therapy to address the interpretation to the struggling ego, always exercising cautiousness never to implicate and reinforce the superego’s cruelty. The cruelty sensed in primitive forms of superego is always related to introjective identifications of a “pre-conceptual traumatic object”. Bion’s model of “container–contained” appears very useful to follow the particular dynamics of the interaction between the threatened ego and the “traumatic object” as a superego element. There are some forms of salamanders that when threatened, split off part of their tail, which wiggles rapidly in order to get the attention of a possible predator as the salamander slips away to safety.
