88 practicing psychotherapists responded to questionnaires asking them to list the 5 most anxiety-provoking experiences in their practice. Anxiety over a patient’s suicide was the most-cited experience, followed by violence, encounter with a difficult patient, & some aspect of a challenge to the therapist’s competence. The therapist’s anxieties are viewed in terms of threatened loss of control, loss of relationship, injury to or loss of competence, & guilt feelings or loss of self-esteem.