Please anyone who has an eating disorder please do not base where to go to treatment from a review site. You should speak to the facilities yourself and make an informed decision. This is not like picking a movie or a restaurant to go to this is a very serious decision and most of the time when people write reviews about something like this it is in a time that they are upset. So please take everything into account and not just the ranting?s of people who may not be in a good place emotionally. However if this is the only resource you have then let me explain why I think this is a great place to go.
1. Puente De Vida is a small facility. This allows for many benefits such as the ability to focus on the individual rather than having to deal with the masses. It allows for the residents to become close and support each other. It allows the staff to supervise the patients thoroughly to help prevent behavior that is unhealthy and that encourages the eating disorder.
2. The facility has highly qualified staff from every discipline to effectively treat the whole patient. Including nutritional restoration, psychiatric evaluation , nursing staff to monitor the patient?s health at all times, a nurse practitioner to oversee the medical progression of health, and of course a full staff of licensed therapists that guide the patients through intense group and individual therapy sessions.
3. The staff fights the insurance companies to try to keep the patients until the patient and the whole treatment team feels the patient is ready to go home.
4. There is a very strict schedule to provide structure and stability in a time in our life that is chaos.
These points and many more make this an effective facility for recovery . I entered PDV in December of 2007 and left in March of 2008. I was fifteen at the time and traveled a long way from my home in Texas. I was in a terrible emotional state at the time and was fully immersed in my eating disorder. Today five years later I am fully immersed in recovery I am happily married I am a Licensed Nurse with a full time Job and can live a full happy and functional life. This full turnaround of my life is largely due to the fact that I was fortunate enough to spend time in a facility like this one. The strengths of residential programs are numerous and this facility truly exemplifies these strengths.
This is a place that if you follow the rules, you trust the treatment team, are ready to recover and work as hard as you can you will find your way to recovery and that should be your goal. If you want an easy time, do not want to dig deep or work on your real issues and want to just go in and put a band aide on then this is not the right place. Of course you won?t always get along with all the therapists it is not their job to be your friend it is their job to help you get better and that is what they do best.
This is the only facility that I have ever been to so there may be others out there that are also effective but I do know that this place really does provide what it takes to find your way to recovery.
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