While concerns and anxieties that may plague the individual with tinnitus may be more readily expressed, the communication difficulties and resultant anxieties accompanying a loss of hearing may be more often repressed if acceptance of the hearing handicap is not fully reconciled. It is the audiologist’s responsibility as patient counselor to remain aware that the patient may have underlying feeling of inadequacy, weakness, or deflated self-esteem related to impaired hearing that need to be addressed in addition to the tinnitus concerns (Clark, 1984).