"Do not go by the website. Of course the pictures are pretty-it's Malibu, California.&quot

My friend's daughter was sent here to deal w/her depression upon high recommendation of an interventionist. After getting accepted into the program, she flew to Malibu and arrived at the facility. Two hours later, upon completing some paperwork w/one of the house staff members but without ever seeing an actual doctor or therapist, they packed her things back up in her suitcase, placed them by the door and sent her away. She was devastated. Nothing she shared in her paperwork deviated from that which was known by the admissions counselor. She was depressed but committed to staying alive, so she couldn't understand the sudden abandonment. Against her will, an ambulance took her away to the nearby hospital and she was never, any point, given information about what was to happen to her. It was so traumatizing for her to have her sanity questioned and to be held in an emergency room after just flying all the way to Malibu for treatment. Malibu Vistas even tried to pawn off the ambulance bill on this young woman and her family when neither she nor the ambulance crew considered it necessary in the first place. Thankfully, Malibu Vistas' legal team got involved and eventually agreed to pay for the ambulance months later.

My friend's daughter did return to the facility after being cleared by the hospital, but she never received the treatment that was promised on the website. She reported seeing her primary therapist two times per week at most and several groups were cancelled due to staff on vacation. She was encouraged to engage in mystical thinking, such as looking for miracles in daily life. She was also pressured to practice Christianity. Religion is fine, however this program is sold as a secular, empirically supported treatment facility. Given her early religious traumas, this was especially confusing and frustrating, and she called me many times expressing as much. The psychiatrists would not honor her current prescription she brought from home, that which she had been on for the last eight or nine years, and this put her into an even more fragile state. Halfway through the four week stay, a nurse told her that she had flatlined in progress. Having attended all her groups and complying with the program, she was confused and understandably distressed. She asked the other members of her treatment team, and none of them knew why the nurse said that. None of the treatment team members knew what anyone said. Everything there felt fragmented and disorganized, from her perspective as well as mine. One client fell outside while walking down the sketchy log stairs that lead to a bedroom and she lay on the ground with a sprained ankle for 30 minutes before realizing that none of the house staff were actually doing the "15 minute checks" and that she would need to hobble her way back to the main house without aide.

Towards the end of the four weeks, my friend’s daughter felt more hopeless about benefiting from the program there and was eager to return home and work with her individual therapist instead. The treatment team, however, sought out her family for another large sum of money to keep her there for two more weeks and have her repeat the same groups. At this point, in her 4th wk, she decided to leave before more money was spent and hope lost. She tried to leave this “voluntary facility” and one of the nurses blocked her path and grabbed her suitcase. She managed to slide through the door and took off for help. How terrifying for her! Malibu Vistas called the cops and when she spotted them up the hill, she agreed to speak with them. The police considered her to be of sound mind. The house staff and therapist insisted she was a unsafe and must return to the center; they wanted to show the police officers her confidential charts. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t get the charts to the police because the director of the program Kambria was not answering her phone (a common problem there, to which her family and I can attest). The police saw through the mirage of feigned concern and accused Malibu Vista of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and families solely for profit. The police helped my friend’s daughter get her belongings from the house and provide her transportation away from this nightmarish facility. Do not go by the website. Of course the pictures are pretty-it's Malibu, California. Read the yelp reviews, including the filtered ones and find a better option for you or your loved one.