I went to La Amistad Behavioral Health for a period of time in the adolescent program, and I am sorry to say that I have very little positive to say about this place. The staff that watched over and 'cared' for myself and the other patients were loud, rude, obnoxious, and embarassed the several girls in front of the others. Many of them were extremely unprofessional and I was harassed repeatedly by the weekend staff about extremely personal things.
My therapist never did anything to help me at all, and absolutely did not listen to anything I or my mother said in therapy sessions. Contrariwise, she sometimes insulted my mother and I, making underhanded references to my plain appearance and insinuating that there was something wrong with our gene pool.
The doctors saw us for five minutes every week and barely spoke to us before increasing or changing our medicines, often to toxic amounts. I was on such a high dosage of my medications that it may have contributed to an extreme reaction I had while at La Amistad, which caused a massive and potentially deadly lymph swelling and caused me to be in the hospital for two months and have two neck surgeries. It could have been caused by other things, but I was on a toxic amount of a medication that had a side effect of swollen lymph glands.
Also regarding the doctors, my friend who was at La Amistad while I was there was also put on a toxic dosage of her medication, and suffered extreme drowsiness and nausea almost all the time. It seemed to me that the doctors at La Amistad just tried to drug a lot of us into being docile, which is of course rather not a very good way to deal with every problem.
To summarize, La Amistad is the last place I would recommend to a troubled young lady; it only causes more trouble and distress.
more