The utilization rates reported in communities that offer mental-health services to children were compared. In one community, the demonstration site of the Fort Bragg Demonstration Project, a full continuum of services were made available free of charge to residents with maximal availability of services. In the other communities, one of which offered a full continuum of services, Dutchess County, New York, services were provided for a fee and access was restricted. A much larger number of children were admitted to treatment and placed in out-of-home programs in the Fort Bragg Demonstration site, where no substantial difference in outcomes for continuum-treated as opposed to traditionally-treated children was observed. The argument is made that the utilization rates reflect that clinicians who work in communities who rapidly introduce a full continuum of care at no cost to the client are subject to the `Clinician's Illusion', the belief that all troubled children need mental-health treatment and will make no substantial improvements unless treated.