Relentless Hope: The Refusal to Grieve
Martha Stark, M.D.
Audio Files

Dr. Martha Stark's particular interest has long been in the patient's "relentless pursuit of the (bad) object." The patient's relentless hope (a masochistic defense) is the stance to which she desperately clings in order to avoid confronting - and grieving - certain intolerably painful realities about the love/hate object to which she is intensely attached; and her relentless outrage (a sadistic defense) is the stance to which she resorts in those moments of dawning recognition that the object might never be forthcoming after all. Finally, the patient's relentless despair (a schizoid defense) is the stance to which she retreats when attachment itself has become intolerable. Martha will offer prototypical interventions designed to facilitate transformation of the patient's need to possess and control the object (and, when thwarted, to retaliate by attempting to destroy it) into the mature capacity to relent, accept, grieve, forgive, internalize, separate, and move on.