One of my first reactions to Tony Walter's article 'A new model of grief: bereavement and biography' was astonishment. The substance of his argument simply did not add up to a new 'model', but by giving it this description he added, in my view, undeserved weight to his, nevertheless intriguing, ideas. I agree with Margaret Stroebe (1997) that Walter's 'model' may not be new, but rather supplementary to present models which tend to emphasise inter- and intra-personal perspectives of mourning. My response comes from a personal angle, both as someone who has experienced an acute loss--and Walter refers briefly to the possibility that different kinds of loss may incur different types of reactions--and from the point of view of a practitioner/counsellor.