Aim of the study:
The aim of article is to reveal evaluations of mental health care system from a perspective of experts, as well as subjective view of patients in mental health centers towards the treatment they are getting.

Subject or material and methods:
This article includes data from two studies done in Lthuania: expert and patient research. Research participants were 20 experts (nongovernmental organizations, academics, service workers, decision makers, central government) and 30 patients (heterogeneous according to their demographic characteristics, diagnoses, different treatment forms received).

Results:
According to patients’ view, psychotherapeutic treatment requires much higher degree of patients’ active involvement and input; medication based treatment contributes to the patient’s passive position regarding his healing process.

Discussion:
Experts’ opinions regarding the balance between psychotherapy and medication: the availability of psychotherapy in bigger cities and a lack of them in provinces; the supply of private providers and lack of public services; a progressive youth and a conservative older generation; a paradoxical concentration of psychotherapy in in-patient facilities and a lack of them in the community.

Conclusions:
Though mental health care requires a clear and ethical balance of biomedical and psychotherapeutic interventions, a clear and public dialogue about the efficacy and advantage of different treatments is needed, but this consensus is still not achieved in many countries including Lithuania. Both, psychotherapy and medication based treatment are regarded as useful elements of treatment from perspective of experts, as well as patients. However, there is lack of availability of psychotherapy services in mental health system in Lithuania