But you generally have the power to get second opinions, seek out different physicians, even have a voice and collaborate on medical decisions about yourself. So, I still don't give the experts total authority all the time. I do acquiesce to their skill level to avoid the necessity to perform medical procedures on myself though.

By that same token, my therapist has a skill set, a knowledge set, that I don't possess, so I do learn from him, use what seems to make sense to me, throw out some of it, modify/personalize much of it, etc. I see our relationship as collaborative though, not authoritative. I see my pdoc similarly. He certainly has the expertise and knowledge and skill with meds that is often beyond my comprehension, but I make the final decisions and wouldn't have it any other way.

Edited to add:

So, perhaps this is about knowing really who is in power and over what.

It is okay to allow people to have a certain amount of power when they really do have the authority and we need their expertise, but we have to be wise enough to know who really does have the authority and only give them the authority over what they really need to be in charge of. When we give people power over things that we can control and manage ourselves (and probably should be), we are giving away our own power to someone else, and in a way, that creates that feeling of our own powerlessness and can really create a vicious cycle.