In the growing literature on crisis intervention, the nurse is frequently designated as the intervener. Donna Aguilera points out that crises occur as a "normal" part of work and that nurses are expected to cope effectively with both the crisis and with patients' everyday problems of living(1). To my knowledge, nothing has been published about dealing with the nursing staff in crisis, despite increasing verbalization that such a phenomenon is not unusual. Nurses, I believe, particularly those employed in large and complex medical centers, are a highly crisis-