The Center for Therapy and Research of Suicidal Behavior (TZS) at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf was founded in 1990. The aim of the project was to enable outpatient psychotherapeutic treatment for acute and chronic suicidal patients exclusively on a psychoanalytic/psychodynamic basis, to provide scientific support and to evaluate the treatment. The article describes the development of the TZS, its theoretical and practical work on understanding suicidality and its treatment as well as its further sustainable activities in research, education and training, media and public relations and suicide prevention in general.