To evaluate the effect of a crisis telephone service upon both the suicidal callers & the counsellors, a semi-structured questionnaire was given to paid staff & to 45 volunteers, &records for 1986 were examined. The majority of counsellors felt that handling a suicide call became easier with experience, but others were burned out or close to it. Only 19% of the calls were apparently of no help to the victims, while one-half the calls were handled by the counsellors without any outside help.