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Such factors as age, race, military status, marital status, distance of hospital from patient's home, and activity of the tuberculous disease do not help to distinguish, upon admission, between patients who will remain in the hospital to get a regular medical discharge and those who will leave in an irregular way. Nor did gross psychiatric classifications or evidence of stress in or outside the hospital help to distinguish between the two groups. There is, however, a relation between irregular discharge from the hospital and problems of hospital adjustment characteristic of each stage of therapy. In each stage of treatment there seems to be a recapitulation of the patient's developmental history. Irregular discharge in early stages of hospitalization appears to be a reaction to conflict over the dependency experienced in strict bed rest. Subsequent conflicts over withdrawal of support and increasing responsibility are related to irregular discharge. The 'countertransference' reactions of the staff also lead to irregular discharge. The Madison Sentence Completion Form is useful for early detection of patients likely to resort to irregular discharge and certain procedures help to prevent it.