I attended Pacific Quest for 99 days beginning in April of 2010. What I once believed to be a punishment, I now clearly understand to be a privilege. Today, I am grounded through the seeds that were first planted at Pacific Quest. The roots grow deeper, the stalks stand taller, and the fruit tastes sweeter still - nearly a dozen years later. With time came perspective, progression, and appreciation, and my journey on the Big Island is now one I remember fondly. Initially I held resentment, even hatred, for the program that seemingly held a spotlight on my darkest moments and deepest insecurities. I was embarrassed to accept, trust, or forgive myself; to love myself felt beyond the realm of possibility. Acknowledgment of suffering and trauma meant there was work to be done. In this sense, standing among dead crops and overgrown weeds was easier than tilling, planting, and tending the garden. Pacific Quest, however, provided the environment for me to do the work; to start the work, really, as the work continues today. Any hostility toward the Pacific Quest program was, in many ways, a reflection of my own self-worth and not of the program itself. Now, as I continue to evolve, reflecting on my time at Pacific Quest can only be seen as beautiful. This is not to say my passage was without suffering, no, but certainly beautiful, nonetheless. Pacific Quest provided the foundation - a nursery and fertile soil - for growth. I remain deeply grateful for the opportunity that Pacific Quest provided. I often long for the simplicity of the day in the life at the program. External pressure, distraction, and expectation fell away, and I found permission to be honest with myself. This provided the chance to touch moments of peace that, before arriving on Hawaii, I was unaware existed. I stay connected to this feeling of solace, knowing I can return to that same state of mind at any time. With each new day, I challenge myself to strip away trappings surrounding me and ground back to the love and lessons learned from Pacific Quest. read more

If I could give negative stars, I would. I attended PQ in 2014 as a 14 year old girl. Everything I am saying is factual. Upon arriving in Pacific Quest, you will be forced to strip in front of 2 staff members you've never met before. They will examine your naked body and write down any scars, bruises, etc. It's traumatizing, humiliating, and dehumanizing. Every two days I had to strip down to my bra and underwear and even pull them aside for staff members to view my 14 year old body. It was obvious I was not harming myself but they did so anyways. Your child will sit in a hut for hours a day with virtually nothing to do apart from journaling. There is no mental stimulation. It's agonizing. Your child will not be permitted to speak to or socialize with other children, but will gradually gain monitored conversation privileges on pre-approved topics. Your mail to your child will be read before they receive it, and their mail to you will be censored. You will not have honest communication with your child. Your child will see a therapist 2x a week. My therapist was a psychologist without a PhD, and more of a counselor than a truly trained therapist. Pacific Quest practiced medicine with no license. They withheld my medication from me that was prescribed by my doctor. Unlicensed, uneducated, unaccredited staff did this without the guidance of a psychiatrist. Pacific Quest starved me, despite weighing me weekly I came back so starved that my primary care physician told me I couldn't exercise anymore. Pacific Quest forced me to go on a 3 day isolation fast in the wilderness, where I was starved and forced to build a hut. A staff member sat outside the door as we went to the restroom and we had to ring a bell every couple seconds. We had to ring a bell every 30 seconds in the shower. We were denied deodorant. To walk anywhere, you need to ask permission. To leave your hut, you ask permission. To use the restroom, you must ask permission. To walk to the sink after using the restroom, you must ask permission. We were required to report the quality of our feces to someone weekly. I do not remember any true nurses on staff. When I had an obvious sinus infection, they gave me eucalyptus essential oils. They denied us medical care. They held the threat of a therapeutic boarding school over our head. Here's the thing: PQ isn't the end all program. PQ will have you send your child to a therapeutic boarding school next where they will be further abused, under the guise of "your child isn't doing well enough". They wring parents of money. This is a FOR PROFIT industry, they are not here to help your child. The founder of Pacific Quest is an investment banker, NOT a psychiatrist, doctor, etc. or anyone with experience in these fields. They are trafficking your child for money. We couldn't have forks. Your child will NOT go on as many outings as they say they will. We were promised to go to all of these beaches and locations and I hardly got to see much. At one stage of the program, we are forced to lay in a grave in the ground and read our own eulogies. I entered pacific quest with depression. I left pacific quest with post traumatic stress disorder, trust issues, suicidal, and regressed. I was a good child before pacific quest. I never did drugs. I began drinking and smoking afterwards to numb the nightmares and the pain of the abuse. But go ahead and send your child to Pacific Quest. They will never trust you again and hate you forever. If your relationship with your child is rocky now, it will be permanently destroyed after PQ. Pacific Quest is expensive, not just the program, but also all the therapy you'll have to pay for afterwards to treat your child's PTSD that they got in the program. read more

Pacific Quest is an excellent program to help young people overcome their mental health struggles. When are daughter was suffering from depression and anxiety leading to suicide ideation, as two physicians we researched and sought out the best mental health care available. We found it at Pacific Quest. It is a superior organization from top to bottom. We visited PQ and were very impressed with the staff, the environment and the community as a whole. The therapists are high caliber, and the clinical staff has designed a unique in-depth program to help young people struggling with mental health issues. The program is challenging, and our daughter embraced every bit of it. She emerged a stronger, healthier individual, and we are eternally grateful to PQ. We can confidently give Pacific Quest our highest recommendation! read more

Our son is just completing his stay at Pacific Quest. To say it has been transformative is an understatement. He has gained so much insight into himself and has developed a confidence in himself and his abilities that was impossible to imagine a few short months ago. The therapeutic support for our child and for us as parents has been incredibly helpful for all of us. Everyone we have dealt with, from our child's therapist, the program staff, administration, medical staff, etc. has been kind, thoughtful and focused on serving our child's needs and ours with compassion and clear-headedness. For families seeking a way to break out of long-running patterns that impede your child's growth and are in need of a "reset", we have nothing but strong recommendations for Pacific Quest. We always knew our child was safe and being well cared for. And he is now well on the way to unlocking his true self. We couldn't be more pleased with the Pacific Quest experience! read more

My daughter leaves Pacific Quest today quite a different person than she was three months ago. Her dad and I are different too. When you think of wilderness therapy you may picture hiking and camping with 50-pound packs in all sorts of weather. Pacific Quest is based on horticultural therapy, and the students live in dorms on one of the two campuses on the Big Island. Don't worry about volcanoes, they are far away and monitored closely. The staff is well organized and communicative, the therapists are tough but nurturing, and the family program is based on experiencing a taste of what their students have done and learned. There are different programs for adolescents and young adults. It is not cheap. It is worth it. read more

ABUSIVE HORRIBLE PLACE i was "legally" kidnapped and sent to this place in 2021 and it was the most traumatizing experience i have ever had. i was strip searched against my will, verbally abused by staff and my parents and family were consistently lied to. my peers and i were not allowed to speak privately or interact in any way unless staff were able to hear and we were forced into silence for sometimes 8 hours or more a day. this place also was neglectful when i was not receiving enough food and passed out and hit my head on concrete. they refused to call a nurse despite me being extremely disoriented and instead of giving me food or medical attention they gave me lavender essential oil on a cotton ball. this place caused people to take such drastic measures to escape such as the time i watched a peer of mine drink hand sanitizer to get sent to the hospital. when the staff noticed what this person had done, instead of calling for poison control they left them lying in alone on a wooden table outside. i have a million horror stories of this place and each one worse then the last. do not send your children here unless you want them traumatized, brainwashed, and mentally worse then when you sent them. read more

It was ok it wasn't that bad, the staff there are truly amazing like Sara Emily DK Maddy all the new staff Madison David they were all so great and really understood you in a true caring way, the therapists are great to Robert you were the chilliest therapist ever thank you for that and for helping me. Idk loy key these people are like lying or something because it was that not bad, when you first get there like its not great your like where am I and why am I even here, but once your there for a bit its great, some of the things you do there are really fun, like we get to go to Kona for outings (super nice beaches) you get to make friends there lets be real some your just gonna be friends with them there then never talk to them ever again but some are like life long friends like I met two really great friends Autumn and Max If you both see this I miss you and hi but they were really great and some of the other kids there are like idk just don't come near me but the food is ok and the chef people are like really nice, Ken if you see this it was funny to see you at the airport when I was leaving. The kind of care they give you is Therapy twice a week then you get your weekly wellness checks once a week if anything medically is wrong then you can check in with a staff and they can tell the medical team and then they will help you, yes you have to have ears and eyes but it all makes sense now and yes if you do try to run they will catch you and tackle you so don't run because its not fun, I tried to do it many times and it never worked so just don't, also RHYTHM IS A HORSE so yes. But yea over all PQ really isn't that bad so calm down all of you Karen's and all of this is coming from a kid they will most definitely remember because I was very difficult. but yea it really aint that bad so yea. oh also someone say hi to Gracie for me read more

This was the biggest mistake we have made so far in our daughter's treatment. Not only was it unhelpful to her treatment and growth, they blatantly disregarded my asking them to get a message to my daughter to cover her face on the plane back from Hawaii due to COVID19. They ignored my concerns, and as expected, she contracted the virus on her airplane ride back from Pacific Quest. The harsh rules about talking amongst the adolescents were very detrimental to her experience, and I did not feel the therapy or medical care were adequate. I would definitely avoid this program if you can! read more

This is a great place to work. We have a real and quanitifiable impact on our students and families. Communicate your ambitions and aspirations to your Manager and you will be heard! Stoked to be a part of the Quest. read more

The owner/operators of Pacific Quest that I personally know are some of the smartest, most genuine, caring people. I feel they are a good representation of Pacific Quest and I would recommend them highly. read more

Excellent care and excellent integrative approach. Truly turned things around for our family member who could not break her cycle with outpatient in her same environment. Her specific therapist could not have been a better match for her. read more

if you are a parent reading this, i strongly suggest sending your child to an evidence based residential treatment program instead of a wilderness program or any troubled teen program. i was sent here when i was 15, and then sent to a therapeutic boarding school afterwards (which has since been shut down for abuse, and PQ recommended this program afterwards) and i still have nightmares about being sent back to both programs. this place is unsafe, unhygienic, and does not practice any evidence based therapy. it also ruined my relationship with my parents, and they would tell you one of their biggest regrets is sending me away, because i only came back worse, with C-PTSD, higher anxiety, an eating disorder, and a substance abuse problem, and i only started attempting suicide after these programs. i know that sending your child here in the name of tough love might seem like the answer, but it's not worth risking your relationship with your kid or their future. read more

ABUSIVE TREATMENT CENTER WARNING!!!! If I could give this review less than one star I would! I am a survivor of sexual assault/rape and went to Pacific Quest in 2019 to get treatment specifically for trauma and ptsd. I had a lot of external and internal anger due to my assault. I had a lot of shame, guilt, depression, anxiety, and self harming tendencies. Pacific Quest failed to give me the care, support, and guidance I needed to treat these mental health diagnosis/symptoms. In fact, the disgusting staff and program managed to worsen my symptoms and create even more trauma and PTSD for me. I was re-traumatized and a great amount of new trauma formed. During my time at Pacific Quest I was thrown to the ground and hit/punched almost everyday. I was forced to watch other kids get thrown into walls and hit/punched. I was touched by various male staff members in a sexually undertone type of way. I was thrown into a dark shed with only a tarp to sit on and cover myself with. I was forced to sleep outside on a beat up yoga mate. I was intentionally drugged up on medications that I was allergic to and that my diagnosis did require so that I wouldn't be strong enough to fight back. I was so over medicated that I could barely speak and walk yet I was still forced to do all of their labor work...I felt like a labor slave. I was forced to not talk to anyone besides my therapist (who only came every 10 days) for most of my time there. I was starved and given only 2 trays a day that had 1/2 a cup of rice, 1/2 a cup of beans, and 1 cup of vegetables on a good day. I was put to work in their "garden" where me and the rest of the "students" were forced to do physical labor work all day that Pacific Quest should have been hiring specific outside workers for. We did all of this physical labor in these off brand and unsupportive crocs. I moved heavy barrels of rocks, made water facets, cut down trees and fields of cane grass (which left me with physical scars), dug up banana tree roots, built "hales" these small little huts, built rock walls, cut down bamboo, etc. all while the staff stood around and made fun of us like we were their slaves. They entirely edited the 2 letters I was allowed to send to my parents, they lied to my parents about my physical and mental health, they took thousands and thousands of dollars from my parents that they were suppose to reimburse them for because insurance paid for some of it but Pacific Quest never did. They kept the reimbursement money from the insurance company plus my parents 65k-70k. The physical abuse, verbal abuse, and neglect became so terrible and unbearable that I drank an entire bottle of sunscreen in hopes that they would take me to the ER so that maybe then I could try to report the enraging amount of abuse. But they never took me to the ER even though I was throwing up everywhere and coming in and out of consciousness. They had the nurse look at me the next morning, but that was all. For my entire stay at Pacific Quest all I was doing was trying to survive. Sometimes when I look back on my time spent there all I have to thank is God for giving me strength and helping me survive an experience that I didn't think I would live through. I genuinely thought I would never see my parents again because I would die from the abuse or kill myself due to the pain I was feeling    This horrifying program left me with events and scars of abuse that I will never be able to forget. I am now 18. I am happily sober and receiving various forms of intensive trauma treatments (EMDR, Nero feedback, Brain Spotting, etc.) for the abuse I suffered at this disgusting program (Pacific Quest). Pacific Quest robbed my family of thousands of dollars and they robbed me of sanity and hope. I later found out that Pacific Quest was operating illegally without any proper licensing to be open. The OHCA had received  many reports of abuse and ended up making Pacific Quest cease all of their operations. Pacific Quest did a damn well good job of selling their program. I even had a specialized educational consultant that found Pacific Quest for me and did a lot of research into the program...but clearly not enough. So please please if you are looking at a treatment center for any loved one invest time into thoroughly checking their licenses, facilities, staff, rates and reviews from parents and clients. Ask around and ask lots of questions! I can't stress how vital it is to finding your child or loved one the proper treatment! Good adolescent treatment centers are hard to come by! read more

**PLEASE READ** This place made me significantly worse. I can recognize that some places that I don't like still were beneficial in my progress. But this place legitimately made me go backwards in progress. They have changed locations and most of what they advertise on the website is bullsh*t. The staff are not trained formally in behavioral therapy - which the website advertises. I knew more about skills than the staff, so they just stood there while I battled through manic episodes by myself. I went to a treatment center before, and it was difficult. But I recognize the growth I made there. This place just crushed the living soul out of me. All the progress I had made at my previous residential facility was completely lost, I believe Pacific Quest made me regress and made my chances of succeeding at home much slimmer. I watched all the others around me slowly break. The way the staff handled food portions was ridiculous. To have your portions labeled "super plus" and still be hungry is humiliating for a young girl with disordered eating habits. I would be so hungry, I was on the floor overcome with nausea and was denied an increase in my portion until the next week. I threw up. One staff member, in front of 3 girls with diagnosed eating disorders, tried to squeeze a thin slice of an apple into a 1/16 measuring cup to make sure it wasn't a sliver too big. I watched the girls breakdown with shame for eating "too much". It was a f*cking apple slice. That was ridiculous. With my medication, I am required to take it with food or it isn't effective and causes extreme nausea, but the staff were upset with me when I requested food to take with it. They gave me 1 tablespoon of seeds (not enough!!). I remember sitting on the porch and crying silently. I was so hungry and wanted to run away simply to get food. But, I watched as other kids tried to run and got tackled and brought back. If I ran, I would stay longer, so I endured the hunger. This sounds crazy. I know. But this is my experience, and I feel like I have a responsibility to share it in the hopes of sparing others the pain. I have legitimate nightmares about this place. The family therapy is a joke. If you are trying to resolve conflicts at home or try and repair relationships, this place is not for you. I had probably 2 sessions about 45 minutes each during my 3 month stay. Coming home was a disaster, and now I am likely going back into treatment. I talked with other girls there about how the food management was affecting us. Every single girl there agreed that if they came in with an eating disorder, it became *signifigantly worse, and the girls who came in with healthy eating habits reported a *signifigant increase in guilt and shame revolving around their eating. The kids are required to spend 12-13 hours in a small bunk room with absolute silence. If you so much as make eye contact with another girl, there will be consequences. I am not exaggerating. I was homesick many nights and would sob while cradling my pillow to my chest, desperate for human touch. A child needs a hug. It's inhuman to go months without any human affection. Or at the least someone to talk to. So I spent those countless hours in the bunk room silently sobbing, completely heartbroken. ** I have NEVER in my life felt so completely and inescapably alone ** You can't bring anything from home. The staff were not empathetic and I felt embarrassed and ashamed by my emotions, as it became a huge deal with lots of frustration if I wanted to talk to someone, because there were never enough staff. I don't think I will ever be able to express how traumatizing this experience was for me. It changed me as a person in a way that terrifies me. I don't know why this program has such amazing reviews when all I've heard of is the pain coming from my peers. Please save your kid the pain and send them to a place that cares. I have been to multiple treatment centers. There are ones that are effective. Please keep this in mind when considering this program. I wouldn't recommend this to my worst enemy. read more

My son went to Pacific Quest this summer as part of a shortened 8-10 week program with Dr. Brian Konik. It was truly the most transformative and life-changing event of his life. We participated in the family program so we got to see first-hand the program, the facilities and the staff. I can honestly say the people were kind, thoughtful and loving. The program was tough but he learned about himself and came out stronger, more grounded and in the best mental and physical shape of his life. And most importantly, he absolutely loved his time there. We were incredibly nervous about sending him and taking this big leap but it was worth every penny and hour of time. He had no alcohol or drug issues but severe anxiety, OCD and social skills gaps. We've seen improvements on all fronts. THANK YOU to PQ. read more

I am very grateful to Pacific Quest. In 2014, my then 14-year-old daughter was going through a mental health crisis that had not responded to traditional therapy or medication. We decided to use the summer before her sophomore year to do a reset. We chose PQ because of their unique philosophy-Personal growth set around an organic garden on the big island of Hawaii. Being a family therapist, I did a ton of research. Her entire team including her psychiatrist, Therapist and nutritionist were all on board. PQ worked with her team to set goals for her stay, and then transition my daughter back home to NJ. We were very pleased with her progress then, and continue to be grateful for the time she spent at PQ. At 22 I am thrilled that she continues to thrive-Not that it was a straight shot forward, but she says that she would not be the person she is today if not for her valuable time at Pacific Quest. read more

I had written a very long review detailing my experience at this program that has since been taken down from yelp. I attended in 2006. I do not know what about the program has changed since 2006. In my experience the program was abusive and I personally suffer from post traumatic stress from how the staff here treated me. Tactics for punishment include drudgery, public humiliation, and social isolation. Children are encouraged to fast for days alone as a "vision quest". I was also shuttled off with an "escort" to a therapeutic boarding school afterward, which I do not believe my parents planned on sending me to but they were convinced to spend more money where the educational consultant gets kickbacks. Pacific Quest is "not as bad" as other programs in places like Utah or Idaho, but it operates on the same principles. Pacific Quest probably is the best of this type of program, but it is still incredibly problematic in its punitive structure. I know kids get sent here when parents are at a point of desperation, but there is no data to support that troubled teen industry programs are effective in treating the vast array of problems they claim to treat. I recommend the book "Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids" by Maia Szalavitz about the industry that Pacific Quest is part of. read more