You know, my friend Marta does this thing, I forget what it's called, but I think basically you get some training, pair up with another person in the program, and proceed to be each others' sympathetic-but-uninvolved ears. It's not like professional psychiatry, but a lot of the benefit of therapy, IMO, is just having someone neutral/not associated with your life and your problems listen to you spill your guts. (A little like online friendships can be sometimes, I think; people who care and actively listen but aren't in the middle of the mess themselves.) It's free, too, which works well when you don't have insurance or a job. She really raves about it, and Marta's not a raver, in general. :) Do you want me to ask about it for you?

Uh, yeah, no sharing therapists with the mother. Yeesh. And I feel a strong desire to reach back through the space-time continuum to smack your second therapist upside the head for you, ARGH.