Oh wow, MusingLizzy, I have such mixed reactions to her waiving the copay altogether.

First, can I admit, I'm a little tiny bit jealous. My T is super-expensive, way more than other local Ts, and isn't on any insurance panels. This was clearly my fault (if I had understood my insurance better, I would have tried to find someone covered first), but it's seriously causing me stress with my budget. I feel like I'm going to go broke, it's such a huge amount of money each month, and it makes it hard to just relax and try to trust the process. It's part of why I'm ready to quit - it's just too expensive to wait and see if it's going to become helpful.

So, sorry for that rant, it's my issue... but it's true, I'm a little jealous! And, part of me thinks - wow! That's a really kind thing for your T to do! Waive your co-pays altogether, just... wow! What a great position for you to be in, to not have any financial stress over getting this help that you need.

But, I thought about it... and if my T were to reduce my fees, I'd love it, from a financial perspective, but, I'd worry a lot. I'd worry that it would be harder for me to bring issues to his attention (I'd feel really bratty, awful, and ungrateful complaining about how he handles things or if something he said was hurtful if he were giving me cheap/free therapy) - but those things can be really *useful* in understanding how/why we react to stuff in our lives! I'd worry about getting tossed out (I'd worry that I'm more trouble than I'm worth if I wasn't paying full fee! Right now, one thing that helps me worry less is that he's even said, "yes, you're a little difficult, but that's OK, I get paid enough to handle it").

And I'd worry again that I look ungrateful if I had feelings of quitting and tried to talk about them when I was getting a discount. Oh, geez, and I worry about talking about other money stuff too... what if I saved up and wanted to go on a nice vacation or replace my 11-year-old-clunker of a car? Would T be secretly thinking they should increase my fee, that I should be spending that money T and not "luxury" items?

It would give me a headache. I hope you can figure out what's best, and work it out with your T. Does it help at all to know that she's being reimbursed by your insurance, so you ARE paying for her... you're paying for her, as you said, with that $600/m that goes to the insurance company!

good luck!