Aim. Description of global neurotic symptom level present during pre-therapy waiting. Material. Case records of 2589 patients containing two symptom checklists filled in before treatment in a day-hospital. Method. Analysis of symptom change, by comparison of symptom checklists 0 filled in whilst waiting for therapy at the first diagnostic ambulatory visit and on the day of psychotherapy admission. Results. Changes of the global symptom level during pre-therapy assessment and pre-therapy waiting were not large but they were composed of frequent changes in both incidence and intensity of particular symptoms. On average only 40-60% of the symptoms (the same) were present in both measurement points during pre-therapy waiting. Similar rates of such changes were observed in women and men. Conclusions. Global symptom changes among individuals waiting for therapy were relatively small in most cases. However, in particular symptoms many different and very heterogenous transformations were observed. Patterns of change were gender-independent in the global symptom intensity as well as in the particular symptom rates.