Gorkin discusses the problems of a therapist whose patient, a depressed man, had hanged himself five years earlier during the course of psychotherapy. The therapist initially responded to the news of the patient's death with shock and denial. His mourning was then inhibited by guilt about certain aggressive countertransference attitudes he had had toward the patient while he was alive. The therapist felt isolated from his colleagues, and he became excessively and inappropriately cautious when confronted with suicidal ideation in other patients. Working through this event was long and painful for the therapist. Gorkin recommends ongoing consultation with colleagues well beyond the time of the initial loss of the patient to avert or help resolve the pathological mourning readily engendered by a patient's suicide. This process, he believes, should be separated from the administrative management of such events.