I had to sign a treatment too. It seems that BP types drop in and out of treatment or stop taking meds as the mood strikes us and that is bad for treatment. With signing a treatment plan they have a way of pointing to it and saying "look, you agreed to do this and you need to stick to it." It probably had a part where if you do not take your meds and show up for appointments we will drop you as a patient.
This is because they only have room in the schedule for a certian number of patients. My office had a waiting list to get in. If you do not comply to the treatment plan, they can drop you and help someone who is serious about treatment. I dont think all offices do this because some might not take the stance that they will only treat the ones who are ready to be treated. Some might not have problem of a waiting list to get in. (my first PSY did not have one, but I didn't like him, either)
Even though I have taken a couple "medication vacations" (forgotten to take them, decided that I felt better and tried not taking them for a week or so) I always fell apart and started back up before going back to see my PSY. I told her what happened and how it felt and what I learned. ( I learned that just because I feel better does not mean it had gone away. If I want to stay better I have to comtinue taking the medications.) This thought process happened before I was Dx with RA. The RA treatment keeps me unstable, I have no illusions of "cured" anymore.
The office does not hold the complient/ non-complient issue over my head, but it does make a diffrence in the way you look at things. If you are dooing poorly, but are non-complient the PSY doesn't know if it is because the meds are not working, or if the meds would work if you took the meds correctly. If you are dooing poorly, but are complient, the PSY is certian that it is the treatment that is the problem. See how that works?
I'm glad that you got in to the PSY, Introverted. When I first started getting treated I thought it would take forever to start to feel better. It is a good sign that they have you coming back each week. My first PSY ( the one I didn't like) had me go back after 4 weeks even though I was taking leave off work because I was in a state of acute depression. My friends had placed a suicide watch on me (my husband was taking off work, and when he couldn't be with me friends came over to sit with me. friends had taken my kids for 2 of the weeks, but he did not consider putting me in the hospital even when we asked for it.) He started treatment, but did not see me till after I restarted at work.
It sounds like you have gotten into a much better PSY than I first did.