Hey there. I don't live in the US so I don't know anything about programs that might be running in the area.
> What she has been able to get is occasional, yet non-helpful psychiatric therapy sessions
How frequent are the occasional therapy sessions?
> She sees no point in trying to get help because the help that seems to be available to her, like group therapy, doesn't help.
What kind of group therapy is it?
I'm asking because I am a great believer in DBT (Dialectical Behaviour therapy) for post traumatic stress and for borderline personality disorder. The line between bi-polar and borderline personality can be a fine one at times, and it might be that they have diagnosed her with bi-polar in order to get an axis I diagnosis (helps with funding for treatment sometimes).
> Patients with BPD are active in finding other people who will solve their problems for them but are passive in relation to solving their own problems. On the other hand, they have learned to give the impression of being competent in response to the Invalidating Environment. In some situations they may indeed be competent but their skills do not generalise across different situations and are dependent on the mood state of the moment. This extreme mood dependency is seen as being a typical feature of patients with BPD.
http://www.priory.com/dbt.htm
This can often give the appearance of swinging between good mood and good functioning and low mood and crisis (which helps justify a diagnosis of bi-polar).
I'm wondering whether the group therapy is part of a DBT program or not. If not, I think a DBT program could be helpful.
> I believe she really needs more serious help than that anyway, perhaps hospitalization where they will actually HELP her and not just ask her questions and then send her home.
Unfortunately... Hospital is often seen as basically providing a holding environment (prevention of suicide) in the short term and the aim is to discharge people to their outpatient support team. It is unclear to me what is being offered to her (e.g., whether the group therapy is part of a DBT program or some other program) or not...
> I don't have much money either and I am in a whole different state than her, which makes helping her even harder. But I don't care if I end up with even more debt than I have already; I just want to get help for her.
Sounds like you really want to help her... This must be really hard for you. Sounds like this could be part of the 'active passivity' thing where she is being active in trying to elicit you to help her and it is unclear to me how active (as opposed to passive) she is being with respect to eliciting help from the group therapist? individual therapist? whatever outpatient service she is receiving...
this kind of condition isn't something that can be magically cured overnight by way of medication or therapy. therapy for the long haul, i'm afraid. is she attending group therapy or has she stopped going because she believes it isn't helping her? if she has stopped going then... well... it is impossible for a therapist to help a client who simply doesn't turn up!
do you know what has prompted this crisis / major stress reaction? did something happen in group therapy?
imho the best thing you could do to help her would be to try and assertain what help has been offered to her and help her work through some of her issues about utilising that help. results aren't amazing in the short term. that being said things do indeed get better over time. right now she probably most needs someone who can sympathise with her bad feeling. while it would be a wonderful thing indeed if you could ride on in on a big white horse and rescue her from the situation that isn't the most helpful long term.
i'm fairly sure (since she had the group therapy option) that there are people for her to contact. they can't make her bad feelings go away or change things over night but they might be able to help support her through this rough time.
sometimes it is about riding it through and appreciating that things WILL get better soon. hang in there.