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The authors discuss the eleven-month experience of an open-ended group of some four to sixteen members, private cancer patients and their families. The group was inaugurated to (1) enhance communication between cancer patients and their families and friends and between family members and physicians; (2) enable patients and family members to deal with intrapsychic conflicts concerning serious and terminal illness; and (3) provide the physicians and staff with help in the care of the patients. At first only the patiens' kin were included; it was felt that attendance would be too great a threat for the patients themselves, but when, after several months, the patients came too, the meetings became more significant and the patients felt supported. This reveals the extent to which both the families' and the therapists' fears can be projected onto patients. The goal was the optimal utilization of the shrunken life span through enhancing family intimacy, sharing, and support. These meetings have been especially helpful to the frightened offspring of cancer patients thrust prematurely into parental roles and to married couples in which the wife has had a mastectomy.