My personal experience with professionals and authorities has led me to be quite skeptical about how well they pay attention to the patient as opposed to paying attention to people they consider to be authorities, when the two conflict. The history of medicine contains a number of instances in which the accepted norms were completely wrong. I personally think the state of understanding in mental health issues is about as advanced as that in most physical health matters of a hundred or more years ago. In such a state practitioners accept almost anything that has general approval, and patients suffer or have to make up their own minds as to what is a valuable treatment, not being able to rely upon "generally accepted" wisdom.

As spiritual_emergency said, even if you stick to "professionals" you can find a wide variety of ideas about what "mental illness" really is, its origins, and what constitutes valuable treatment. In such a state the burden is on the patient to decide. This can be a major challenge, can be very frightening -- and can lead to major personal growth when one is forced to think things out for oneself -- with help one can gain from other people who have been through similar things, and writings of people who make sense to you.

As frightening as it may be, I think we have seen in our national life as well that "authorities" are not always to be depended upon.