THIS SERIES OF PAPERS1 HAS as its overall concern the death of the analyst as an event that has clinical ramifications and importance in the life of the patient. The project evolved out of the clinical necessity that each of us found of intervening with patients whose analysts had died. At the start of our study, we personally had made contact with the patients of four analysts who died, three of whom had been ill, and one whose death was sudden. During the course of our work, one or more of us became responsible for the patients of additional analysts. This was the unplanned, fortuitious data. Since that time we have made a more systematic study of this topic and have gathered data deliberately. We have become aware of other analysts who have died while in the midst of work with a full compliment of patients and have studied as best we could the patients of these analysts.

In the difficult moments that we faced informing patients of the