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This discussion addresses a particularly troubling question raised by Amy's discussion of Mary: Does Mary's slow progress in treatment pose a challenge to our convictions about the mutative power of selfobject relating. Despite Amy's efforts to be the developmentally needed and longed-for selfobject, Mary subjectively experiences Amy as failing to understand her. This article offers some speculative thoughts about what might move the work in a different direction. Perhaps Mary's anger could be understood, not just as her need to protect herself against the high risks of retraumatization, but as an assertion of what is referred to as her “striving for health” (Buirski and Haglund, 2001); in this case, striving to maintain the feeling of aliveness, agency, and personal power in the relationship. Misunderstanding striving for health as fear of retraumatization or pathological defense can be experienced as a massive misattunement. Interpreting health as pathology, however well-meaning, may be experienced by Mary as the ultimate invalidation of her personal world of subjective experience.