The author outlines an approach to assessment, or as she prefers to call it, psychoanalytic consultation, in the Health Service. This involves giving the patient an experience of the analytic process, which they can then assess in a way, while the assessor gains information about a number of categories that can be thought of hierarchically, which inform the advice given the patient and the referrer about management and treatment. The safety of the patient is paramount, as psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a powerful and disruptive treatment. However it is argued that, on the whole, ‘suitability for psychotherapy’ should be on the basis of exclusion rather than involving the patient passing a sort of ‘suitability test’. The latter may enable public psychotherapy services to deny the incompleteness of what they are able to offer.