Ultramarina,

Kudos to you for getting her in to see the psych. Too many people are in denial that kids can have very real psychological issues that need professional intervention. It's odd because if they have a physical problem, we are right there taking them to see a doctor, but psychological problems still have a stigma.

Cognitive behavioral therapy can be really helpful. The psych will usually teach some techniques to help her stay calm and stop the harmful self-talk that is probably going on inside her head. Sometimes if can be as simple as breathing exercises, meditating, tapping on pressure points or taking automatic negative thoughts (ANTS) and replacing them with positive statements. Sometimes those angry rages come from a very real fear that the world is out of control and one of the best antidotes for that is very calm parents who can reassure that they are there no matter what. (Not matter what she does, she can't drive you away.) It sounds like you have already figured that out, which I'm sure is helping a lot.

Lastly, I recommend the book "The Highly Sensitive Child." I saw some other posters recommended books, too. I haven't read those, but the HSC was very helpful to us when my younger DD went through some similar issues. She was younger, but the very scary rages happened daily to the point where I was afraid to leave the house with her because I never knew what was going to set her off. No matter what I said or did (comforting, punishing, ignoring, etc) helped. Fortunately, things are much better now and the start for us was exactly what your psych suggested- behavior therapy.

Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Highly-Se...ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337048606&sr=8-1

Good luck with your dd. It sounds like she has a great mom.