From what I've heard over the past several years, the mental health industry has, like many others, become far more competitive and less remunerative than it has been in the past. Health insurance companies in particular have made life much harder for all professionals in the field, reducing their fees and intrusively supervising the treatment worked out for each patient. My own personal conclusions from that and from personal experience are that things are hard not only for the "proletariat" of the industry (LMFT's, LCSW's, counsellors, family therapists, etc.), but also for the elite: the M.D. psychiatrists and the Ph.D. psychologists. So some pros are really having to fight for clients, while other, more elite pros have sufficient business to find it easier to write off a client who really wants to consult someone else.

I simply can't believe that these kinds of problems don't have an effect on how patients are treated, particularly those with the kinds of requests that kallinite says she presented to her professionals. As I see it (I have fifty [50] years of therapy behind me, with a variety of professionals), the more professional of the professionals tend to cluster at the top, where you find the M.D.'s and Ph.D's. Of course, none of this should be happening at all. No one's treatment or advice should ever be affected by the economic concerns of the professional. And I'm sure that 99.99% of them would deny that it is. But they are humans, too. And many humans are subject to influences they would rather not acknowledge.

As of course you know, you are entirely entitled to consult different professionals, change professionals, criticize and/or evaluate professionals and take meds or not take meds. These are all your choices, decisions to be made by yourself, not by your professionals. It is courteous to listen to and seriously consider their advice on any such issue, but the ultimate decision is yours and if they try too hard to affect your decision then something is wrong. In presenting these issues to your pros, do not feel, or let them make you feel, as if you are some weirdo trying to do things that no other patient would ever consider. The issues you present are not only perfectly valid but are quite normal and frequent among the patient population of the entire country.

Good luck and take care!