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Drawing on the emotional impact of the pandemic in the analysis room, the author proposes a brief theoretical excursus on the subject of death anxiety as well as of the ability to tolerate loneliness, and analyses these mental dynamics. He identifies one of the mind's natural defences against the sense of transience as a form of negation, termed “existential”, of the sense of one's own finiteness, in order to provide the Self with cohesion and a sense of permanence in time. This existential defence is supported by a moderate level of omnipotence that is acquired with maturity and at the end of the path of personal analysis. For this reason, the peculiar frame of mind needed to accompany the dying person at the moment of passing is analysed. A necessary frame of mind, for the analyst in session, to tolerate the patients' death anxieties as well as his/her own.
KEY WORDS: Transience, palliative care, death, negation, pandemic.