Tomorrow I'm going to call a family therapist to arrange a meeting. I really need professional help with my daughter. I thought if she and I could work with a family therapist, it might help. At least I would be able to say I didn't give up easily and tried everything I could think of. I've had a desire to do this for a while, and did make a move in this direction by linking up my daughter with a therapist, but she is not a family therapist. And they haven't been working on family problems, as far as I know. My daughter's been seeing her for almost a year and a half. I think she is getting something out of this, but there has been no change in the areas I would like to work on and improve for the health of our family. I think we need to work together for change to really occur. I didn't know what I was doing when she started on her therapy, and probably should have had her start with a family therapist, who could accommodate working with multiple family members, but I just didn't think of this, and my own therapist recommended this person highly, so I just dove in and didn't think. So the problems are still unsolved and I need to attempt another solution. I have done everything without professional help that I could think of--I've gotten advice from friends, read books, and asked my own therapist as well as the child specialist involved with my divorce for advice. I'm really tired.

I've identified the therapist I am going to contact. My own therapist recommended several family therapists, and I chose this one based on his expertise and location. I read his website, and his approach and expertise sound really good. I am hopeful that he can help.

I have only so many therapy dollars so it will be hard to pay for the new therapist as well as both my and my daughter's individual therapists. So we will both need to cut back. I will make it a goal for now for us each to go no more than 3 times a month (we both go pretty much weekly right now). Hopefully the family therapy will be very practical and problems-focused, and we won't need to go longterm.

I don't know why I'm posting this. I'm so exhausted with the problems in my family.

Has anyone ever done family therapy together with their child? Was it helpful?