I'm also a social worker and I can empathize with doing an extremely difficult and emotionally taxing job for a low pay. Things have improved for me financially since I became a LMSW and a supervisor, but not to the extent that I would be able to afford to pay for therapy out of pocket.

In fact, I had to quit seeing my former T because he did not take insurance. I had seen him for about 7 months and, initially, I was crushed that I had to leave him. I didn't even look for another T for months. Then one day, I started to look again and found a T covered by my insurance. My new T is a PhD (my former one was a LCSW) and each session costs me a merely $19 in copay, that's all. He takes care of all the paper work too.

I know that leaving a T, especially one you have connected with, is extremely difficult but I would also venture a guess that continuing to see a T under financial distress would make recovery/healing much much more difficult. At least for me, I could not really concentrate on the therapeutic work because I was worried about how I was going to afford my next session.

As a fellow social worker, I know better than to give advices... you will make the best decision for yourself. I just wanted to share my experience with you; the experience of having to leave a T for financial reasons and then finding a competent and caring T covered by insurance. And for me, not having to worry about the T's fee does make a world of difference when it comes to being able to engage in the therapeutic process.