Should psychotherapy be covered by insurance? | A possible solution to finite resources with infinite demands

    Many times I've heard the problem of whether psychotherapy should be covered by insurance or somehow paid by the state. I was initially rather against this because of some issues that could arise in the process, but now I think I have come with an alternative that would work better.

    What we have to keep in mind is that in the field of mental health, diagnosing is not done like in other fields of medicine. In psychology/psychiatry, diagnosing is done purely based on symptoms. To be clear, here I am excluding neurological disorders such as epilepsy or Alzheimer's, I am talking about what are known as mental disorders, such as depression, OCD, ADHD, autism or schizophrenia.

    We have not developed any instruments, such as brain scans or anything of that sort, to diagnose problems like depression and anxiety. This means that we do not have "objective" or "definitive" ways of measuring the severity of someone's symptoms, other than asking them and trusting their word, for the most part.

    In many parts of the world, some therapy is subsidized by the state, but priority is given to the people who (are thought to) have 'more severe' issues. Thus, if two people report symptoms of depression, but the  first reports more severe symptoms than the second simply through a verbal interview (or worse, through a questionnaire), the first person may have to wait less, or may receive more therapy sessions, etc. 

    This raises certain issues: is this really how we prevent over-consumption? Anyone can come and claim to have symptoms more severe than they actually have. Or even if they do not intentionally lie, who are we to judge how "bad" it must be to live as a person without having any access to actually living as them? For example, the two depressed people in the above example may have symptoms just as severe, but the first may simply be more emotionally and verbally expressive due to their personality, thus falsely, and most likely unintentionally, making other people believe that they have it worse than the second person.

    We can get even more philosophical than this if we ponder about what it is like to live as another person, if "your red is the same as my red", etc. But this is not necessary now. What is important is that asking someone about their symptoms in a 15-20 minute interview is not a very reliable way of measuring how much they "need" therapy, regardless of whether the problem is depression, generalized anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia, a personality disorder, or something else.

    A solution I propose to this is for every person (in the respective country that would implement this) to receive a certain number of subsidized or even free therapy sessions in their lifetime. For example, every person receives 100 free therapy sessions and 50 therapy sessions at half-price, subsidized by the state, that they are free to use in whatever way they want throughout their life. The person should be free to choose their therapist.

    This not only solves the issue of prioritizing some people in front of others when it comes to receiving therapy (now everyone is thought to "need" therapy just as much by the state), but it also gives more freedom to the individual in choosing their therapist. This is very important as most studies that measure factors of change in psychotherapy place the therapeutic alliance near or at the top of the list. It is very important to find a therapist that you feel comfortable with and that you "vibe" well with, not to accept the first one that the state gives you. This freedom in choosing your therapist would also solve the situation in which too many healthcare systems around the world only gave Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and a few other related treatments (DBT, etc.), instead of offering a variety of different types of therapy. They completely ignored all the research that shows that most other types of therapy (psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy, etc.) are equally effective, compared to CBT, in treating most common problems like depression or anxiety. Example.

EDIT:  We should also say that if you have an entire society where everyone went to therapy on the long-term (1-2 years, etc.), it would also have an interpersonal effect. This means that if you have a problem, and your friends and family (or everyone else you interact with) go to therapy, it would have a positive effect on your own mental health (not as much as you going to therapy yourself, but still non-negligible). Now imagine a society where almost everyone goes/went to therapy. Inter-generational traumas would not be passed just as much from parents to children. Everyone would be better off, even the minority of people who chose not to go to therapy.