ABSTRACT
In the course of exploring therapists' attraction to the various modes of therapy, the author suggests to a variety of ways in which therapists defend themselves against death anxiety. Therapists tend to favour particular forms of psychological defences against death anxiety. While all of the defences against death anxiety invoked by therapists involve a measure of activity on his or her part, the main denial-supporting, action form of defence vis-a-vis death issues is the invocation of frame modifications in a psychotherapy experience. Therapists who are suffering or recovering from an obvious or serious injury or illness should expect their patients to have strong unconscious responses to the trigger and a varying, often defensive conscious response as well. With regard to the ageing psychotherapist, the author turns to an observation made by S. Freud regarding the evolution of the primary anxieties in humans—a sequence he defined without including death anxiety.
