The last thing I would ever do is let some lunatic psychiatrist lead my daughters down a path of mental illness. I’ve seen several of my daughter’s friends go from perfectly normal teenage girls to whacked out anxiety, ridden, disasters.
I would exhaust every resource before doing that.
Just my

If you disagree, then let’s talk about it.
My stance is that you should try your very best to handle your own house before subbing out your parenting to strangers who have a vested interest in finding things wrong with people as a means to put food on their plate.
Was I a tad hyperbolic in calling all psychiatrists “lunatics”? Yes. Obviously.
I’m not firing from the hip. Ive done counseling. Both marriage and on my own. One of my my kids went through 4 of them. It has it place and can be positive.
I simply think letting a stranger play in the malleable putty that is your child’s adolescent brain is a horrifically risky proposition with potentially life long consequences.
Where do you disagree?
I wasn't going to bother to respond as I highly doubt you're at all interested in evaluating your current viewpoint when you're calling physicians "lunatics". Maybe I'm wrong, though. But, more importantly, I'll respond for any others that might be reading what you're writing in hopes of providing information.
I disagree 100% with virtually everything you wrote here.
1) Calling a physician a "lunatic" is incredibly demeaning and insulting. It's not a "tad hyperbolic". It's way over the line.
2) Perhaps you're confusing therapists and psychiatrists. Those are two different entities. So, in case you or others don't know, psychiatrists are MDs or DOs that have gone through medical school and then AT LEAST 3 years of residency to practice. Some do additional fellowships to do child and adolescent psychiatry. In total, that's anywhere from 11-13 years of graduate training (4 year of college, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, and 2 years of fellowship if specializing in child/adolescent psychiatry). They are physicians and they diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medications that may be necessary.
Therapists usually have completed a master's degree and/or a doctoral degree. However, they do not diagnose and they do not prescribe medications. An equivalent way of thinking about it is seeing an orthopedic doctor for an injury (psychiatrist) who diagnoses and figures out whatever treatments are needed and then may refer you to see a physical therapist (mental health therapist) for weekly/monthly/whatever treatments are recommended.
3) The idea that psychiatrists lead girls from normal girls to "anxiety, ridden disasters" is just absurd. That's the equivalent of suggesting going to see your regular doctor caused you to have high blood pressure or diabetes. It's ridiculous.
4) You can feel like having a "stranger play in the malleable putty that is your child’s adolescent brain is a horrifically risky proposition", but that's another ridiculous take. Mental health professionals LITERALLY save lives of teenage children that are depressed and potentially suicidal.
5) Psychiatrists DO NOT "have a vested interest in finding things wrong with people as a means to put food on their plate". Once again, that's an absurd take. Same way your regular doctor isn't looking for things wrong for their paycheck. That's not how billing even works. And, again, it's insulting to a profession that literally spends over a decade training to help other people.
So, suffice to say, I disagree wholeheartedly with everything you've posted from your original post that I quoted with my reaction and as well as this one. Again, I doubt you're interested in changing your views, but I'll respond once as a courtesy despite your disrespectful post to an entire profession.