$240 per hour (back in those days)

Per hour? damn, I could work 8 hours in a day and earn more than an entire month's salary at those rates. This is under the assume that my country's currency is weak (even more weak now).

So a lot of people just let their condition and trauma persist without getting any help.

Good to hear it worked out for you. And it's definitely true how some people spend so much on therapy that the returns don't necessarily translate to better quality of life. Healing takes time, takes the right conditions, and it's resource intensive to recover even just from a few seconds of trauma. And how much people can persist tolerating trauma says a lot of about each experience being unique because everyone has their own boundaries on how much they can tolerate their inner demons.

There needs to be a balance between health providers and the affordability of the said care - a balance that makes sense no matter where people are in the world

I agree. I don't really expect things changing anytime soon. It's even impractical to copy what the rates are from different countries because others have different standards of living with laws and culture to add to the mess. In the Philippines, mental health is just starting to get prioritize despite how much media presence it has been for the past few years post covid, legislation and cultural shift in mindset hasn't picked up to where we ideally want to be to at least reach decent.