Personal well-being and post-discharge consumption of professional help were studied in a longitudinal pre-, post- and 5 year follow-up survey of 271 neurotic and psychotic in-patients who were treated in a psychotherapeutic community. The results indicate that female as well as neurotic patients apply for additional help more easily than male or psychotic patients do. Readmission figures prove to be relatively low in comparison to figures from other studies on more or less comparable diagnostic groups. Male and psychotic patients are over-represented in the readmitted group. Sex role patterns and the quality of introspection are considered as factors that underlie differences in help-consumption. The development of personal well-being is discussed by considering 8 `career-types' of well-being. For approximately 10% of the subjects an unfavourable long term development was assessed in this respect and these subjects proved to be far most post-discharge help consumers. To the opinion of the authors Eysenck's spontaneous recovery paradigm is not applicable as an explanation for this phenomenon.