[DanBC]

No. That's not what modern evidence based therapy is.

If you're talking about 'counselling' then yes, a friend can do it about as well as a trained counsellor. But remember that the evidence base for counselling is weak; that people often feel worse with counselling; and that counselling is sometimes actively harmful.

> covers something like 80% of 6 therapist visits, and after that it's all on me.

That's a shame. If they covered 100% of 8 visits they'd cover most people who need CBT.

> I've thought long and hard about how to solve this (maybe have a service that just handles all the idiotic HMO stuff for you to make it as low-effort as possible),

Maybe just "buddying" - someone visits or calls you and talks to you and watches you while you do all the stuff you need to do. This builds self-reliance.

But yes, anything medical is really tricky.