Two Tales of Loss and the Search for a Solution: New Ideas on Acting Out, Sadomasochism, and Working Through

This paper examines two movies, Secretary and Mostly Martha. Using these seemingly disparate movies, the author draws a parallel between two stories of loss, focusing primarily on two women's struggle with troubled father-daughter relations. The case can be made for a simplistic profile of a healthy workingthrough process in Mostly Martha versus a pathological solution in Secretary. However, the author shows how normal mourning and aspects of paranoidschizoid pathology can overlap, providing certain internal bargains that work adequately and serve to maintain a functioning ego. The corresponding psychoanalytic concepts of acting out, sadomasochism, and working through are reviewed.