A feature of many investigations of suicide is recoil from empathic closeness to a suicidal person. The motives for this lie within the investigator’s own suicidal proneness, guilt, shame, contempt & avoidance of involvement. These motives hinder objective assessment. With recognition of these resistances, the realistic determinant of suicide becomes discernable. A neutral approach to suicide should reduce the dangerous false glory sometimes attributed to the act. (RM)