This paper is about a patient who had been traumatized and could not integrate. She may have started to take back some of her attacks on others, but may have needed to punish herself by suicide. It considers issues of merging and symbiosis, and questions whether these states are helpful in establishing a therapeutic relationship, for further development. It asks whether it is possible to contain very damaged patients without medication in a therapeutic milieu. Overall it considers the impact of a suicide on a worker in a residential setting.