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This article critically assesses the evaluation of consumer satisfaction in mental health treatment settings. Methodological problems addressed include uniformity myths, inclu-sion of items not measuring satisfaction, ambiguity in response alternatives, lack of precision in the use of terminology, failure to distinguish dissatisfaction and lack of satisfaction, failure to sufficiently probe, poor psychometric practice, the absence of accepted measures, failure to identify norms for satisfaction, lack of control over proce-dure, sampling bias, biasing responses, the lack of variability in responses,and primitive design, analyses, and reporting. Consumer satisfaction emerges as an important indicator of the quality of care, but one that must be interpreted with caution. n this article, I overview the use of consumer satisfaction mea-sures to assess the accessibility of mental health treatment. I believe the study of consumer satisfaction is important but is at an early stage of development. Numerous methodological problems and practi-cal difficulties vitiate the value of much of the research to date. A need exists for more and better research in this area. It is helpful to begin by defining what is meant by consumer satisfac-tion and how this concept is operationalized. This is followed by a brief history of this research and a detailed consideration of methodologica