I think the problem of public and private insurance coverage for mental illness is a serious one, not because mental illness and the professions that treat it aren't legitimate, but because the interplay between real mental illness and plain old attitude problems is extremely complex, and it's utterly impossible to separate the two in any way that's workable for insurance bureaucracies. I know someone who clearly has very real brain chemistry problems, causing psychiatric symptoms (serious depression, anxiety, completely reversed sleep schedule, and lack of appetite) for which she is being medicated with partial success. But the fact that trying different medications has brought some relief from the organically-based problems has, in my opinion, distracted her and her psychiatrist and therapist from the fact that she also desperately needs to readjust her thinking on a lot of topics. However, her counterproductive thinking patterns are at least partly the result of years of untreated, very real organic problems. Right now she really needs continued medication and professional monitoring, but without some well-placed kicks-in-the-behind, those will be a limited benefit. But how does an insurer contractually commit to cover medication and talk-therapy, only if those are accompanied by kicks-in-the-behind from people the patient interacts with in her daily life? That's the combination that's usually needed, but there's no way systematically ensure its delivery as a complete package.