Introduction:
Suicide is considered a serious public health problem and has affected an increasing number of people in Brazil and Latin America, consequently leading to an increasing number of people affected by the suicidal crisis, regardless of having a bond with the attempting person.

Objective:
To understand defense strategies developed by workers who intervene in suicidal crises.

Methods:
This study consists of a qualitative approach, using psychodynamics of work as a theoretical and methodological category. Data were produced through semi-structured interviews, an intersubjective technique that allows the interviewee to speak and the interviewer to listen. The analysis of these data was possible with the use of a content analysis technique: set of techniques that aims to analyze the communications, through the systematization of objective procedures allowing the inference of knowledge related to the messages.

Results:
15 workers with experience in interventions in suicidal crises, members of the military fire brigade, located and operating in the southeastern region of Brazil, were interviewed. Defense strategies were identified that occur in four distinct and interconnected moments: (1) moment when they receive the information that the crisis is happening, (2) followed by the teams displacement to the place of the crisis, (3) the intervention aiming to remove the trying subject from the risk and (4) the return to the base. The flow of work practices allowed us to understand defense strategies that act in the denial of suffering, while others act in the concealment of suffering.

Conclusion:
The elaboration of these strategies inserts workers into true traps: dissimulation and denial of suffering allow the continuity of work, but also make suffering difficult to identify.