All civilizations have therapeutic methods to deal with death and the period of mourning. Not ours. By hiding away the experience of death, aren't we becoming more helpless, more disoriented than ever? Perhaps our conscious choice to ignore death is what makes it so traumatic and emotionally exhausting. How can we productively face the incomprehensible? M.-F. Bacqué, a clinician psychologist, answers these questions and others in her rigorous analysis of the mechanisms and psychic necessities of bereavement.