Usually I don't write negative reviews. This is one of the few times I believe a negative review is…read moresorely warranted.
Places like this profit off of vulnerable people, when they are at their lowest. It's disgusting the way I was treated as a young adult in the OCD program (might've been a different house than this one, but this review is for the general OCD residential program at Newport Institute).
Let me walk you through the awful experience of being here:
1. Right when you arrive, they confiscate all your belongings, throw your clothes in the wash, and all your personal items are taken away and can only be retrieved on request. I thought I was going to a residential treatment facility, not a prison? They never tell you this on the phone when they are trying to get you to come to the program and take your money.
2. The food's pretty awful, especially for vegetarians. Getting accommodations for food is very difficult.
3. Your phone is taken away, and you only get 3 10 minute calls per day to call anyone you want. That's all the contact with the outside world you get. You can "earn" more time, but that's ridiculous. I should be able to contact people without them tearing away my phone from me.
4. You can't leave the house (even for a walk) without one of the staff attending to you. It's like house arrest.
5. They lock EVERYTHING up. Not just knives and sharps (which is odd, because this program is for OCD, not for suicidal people...). But they lock away YOUR HYGIENE supplies, HAND SOAP, plastic bags, and TOILET PAPER. Yes, some people may have OCD around these things, and for them that might be worth it. But for others who don't, this is INCREDIBLY frustrating.
6. The OCD staff is SORELY undertrained. The two therapists at the facility just had a FEW MONTHS of OCD training. That is ridiculous. Residential is the highest level of care for OCD, and they hire newbies to try and deal with them? It's a clear money-grab operation.
7. The staff all wanted to cover their asses and do the thing told to them by their bosses despite the effect on the patients.
8. MOST IMPORTANTLY, they basically lock you up, and make it INCREDIBLY difficult to leave the program for good. I was traumatized by my experience trying to leave. I was having a terrible time there, and I wanted to leave. They told me that they may want me to stay up to several months there??? There was no way I wanted to stay there for several months, so I tried to leave. But they set up all these "invisible" hoops for me to jump through. I couldn't get my phone back (which they lock away) to call an Uber/book a flight to leave because I myself didn't pay for my phone plan (my relatives did). Apparently, that's a rule that is never told to you. They also threatened to call social services to do a suicide safety check with me if I leave, despite me showing no suicidal symptoms while there. I had to covertly get my phone and quickly change it so that I paid for my phone plan before anyone saw. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, my "wonderful" (sarcasm) therapist was extremely pissed off with me, as was majority of the staff. The main people who showed compassion were the OTHER residents, not the staff. That goes to show how screwed up of a place this is.
Being here was honestly one of the worst and most scarring experiences of my life. I don't wish this place on anyone. This place wasn't supposed to be an inpatient psych ward where they lock everything up. There's supposed to be a difference between residential treatment and a hospital psych ward. Residential treatment rules are supposed to be more lax, since it's not a place for acute crises (like suicidality) -- psych wards are. But, I guess these people just didn't know or didn't care.
If you're looking for residential OCD treatment, DO NOT go here. I would recommend this place in Houston instead: https://ocditexas.com. Another place (that I haven't personally gone to but have heard good things) is McLean Hospital in Boston. They will actually treat you as human beings there. Don't go here, please.
