The mental health of forty-three young adults who had suffered from neurosis in childhood was compared with that of twenty control subjects. Significant differences regarding the presence or absence of illness was noted in the two groups, with more than seventy-five per cent of the former at least mildly ill at follow-up, compared with only fifteen per cent of the control group. The results suggest that children with neurotic difficulties sufficient to bring them for professional help have a much worse prognosis for good mental health than normal control subjects. It is noted that by psychoanalytic standards no patient in this particular study received adequate treatment. The authors also note that, depending upon the population involved, estimation of the degree of psychiatric disturbance through questionnaire interviews administered by nonprofessionals can lead to overestimation of the degree of illness and to substantially incorrect conclusions, and that clinical assessment appears to be the only available corrective.