This paper discusses the development of suicidal impulses in children who have lost their mothers due to abandonment or death. The paper is based on two psychoanalytic case studies, in which the children were in therapy when the first suicidal impulses emerged. A pattern is described in which bereaved children's intense wishes to have their mothers back all to themselves are transferred onto the therapist. When these wishes are frustrated, suicidal intentions develop, are communicated, and can then be partially worked through. (DP)