In this paper, the author explores a special type of emotional experiences which is difficult to process it, to contain and dream about, and sometimes even impossible. These experiences bring forth death anxiety and multiple defences for the one who lives them, but also for those who are beside him/her. What is specific to this working-through towards the anxiety of death is related to the setting and the place where the analytical work takes place – the general clinical hospital – and to the type of patients with whom one works – patients with chronic conditions in the terminal stage. In this sense, the author presents how, alongside an interdisciplinary team, she carries out the psychoanalytic work with hospitalized patients in the terminal stage.

In the final part of the paper, the author highlights, from her point of view, her own insights that can help both the specialist and the person in suffering to be capable of doing the work of containing the anxiety of death.