San Jose Behavioral Health

I’m very thankful to SJ behavioral health for holding a violent unstable family member of mine undergoing 96% THC induced psychosis and withdrawal for 7 days. He was a threat and danger to everyone around him, including himself, and sometimes a last resort option such as this isn’t ideal or luxe but they are extremely necessary.

I am thankful this facility is here and was able to provide emergency services for my child. I am less than impressed with this facilities ability to answer the phone. I have been trying for days to get ahold of the billing department so I can pay them and no one will answer or return calls.

It may have been because I arrived on Friday night i believe, and I was given the physician-on-the-weekend treatment, (meaning Zoom arraignments), but my hold was extended before I met with my assigned physician. It was dishonest the way I was kept there, because in the forms they need to fill out for your hold extension, they check boxes on "this person is disabled", they write "this person is labile" as physician comments on the form. This was my second time I was here, and that first Zoom doctor from my first time, he also used "labile" to describe my condition in that form back then - I think they just use that word as a go-to in the process of rubber stamping you to be kept longer. Like I was struggling to wake up at 6:30-7:00 am with a webcam then shoved in my face, sleeping on poor quality mattresses in freezing rooms, i was yanked off all of the medications i was taking at (which is standard procedure if you are on any going into a place like this), and I was going without glasses i needed to wear If you are in unemployment status and come here, then you are staying here longer. If you do work then I think you will be excused timely. The facility is fancy. Good people that work here as day-to-day staff. The food is more than acceptable. They gave me this really weak hybrid of a graphite pencil & pen that was completely rubber as their requirement to supply writing utensils. For social media monitoring that happens with this review, please stop doing this, *please*, and give people markers to write with upon being admitted here; it can be self-destructing to want to write in a stressful environment and not be able to.

This has been an absolute nightmare. My adult non verbal when in catatonia daughter whom I am the caretaker for ( she’s lived with me her entire life) was sent there from what I’m told. I call twice a day to find out anything…. are they giving her medication… Are they giving her the right medication… Can she speak now? When can she come home… Is she safe… What is a prognosis… Is she getting better… Do they have any questions for me since I’ve been dealing with her disease with her for six years and they say I’m sorry we can’t say anything unless you give me the code. I’m like what code? She can’t speak to give you authorization, but you can bet I’ll be the one they call when they’re ready to release her. That’s if she still alive because I don’t even know if they’re taking care of her. I am moving 3 1/2 hours from this facility and I’ve told them that. They won’t tell me anything. Terrible terrible for the family members even though there are some exceptions by lay for family. I think it’s time for an attorney or the police for a wellness check. What else can I do?

My son was placed at this facility, (minor department), he was here for 7 days. After seeing the reviews I was worried about him being here, since the reviews are pretty negative but the experience he had was very positive and it helped him to get the much needed help he needed. The staff were all very professional and responsive. They tended to his needs and helped us through this very difficult time process. I’m thankful for the work this facility and staff does. The receptionist, nurses, caseworker, and doctors I spoke with were all great! He’s doing better now and I felt compiled to write a review based on our experience.

I have pretty mixed feelings about the care at this place. This wasnt a good environment for healing. One of the issues here is that they do a "skin check" upon admission where you have to strip down completely naked in front of a staff member, to see if you have evidence of self-harm or if youre holding onto any items. A lot of the patients here are victims of abuse and assault and I cannot imagine how triggering that would be for other people (not to mention how uncomfortable it made me). Your family members can send in clothes and other items but it takes the facility several days to process them, and some of the items don't get returned to you. You also have to wear an ankle monitor that is checked multiple times a day by a staff member. There was no real individual therapy except for occasional conversations with a doctor about your treatment plan. The doctor will also ask fairly invasive questions about your history. The occasional groups were unhelpful because of the extremely basic material--like lists of things to do when you're lonely, doing watercolors, etc. Which would maybe be more helpful for people who weren't traumatized and suicidal. We were confined to a fairly small "day room" which contained a bookshelf, chairs, tables, and a TV. Compared to a past psych ward where the central room was much larger and had coloring supplies and puzzles/games, this was pretty rough and probably contributed to the many conflicts in the ward. You werent allowed to go into your room unless you had a room order from a doctor. We could only be outside for an hour or so every day. They way that they treated patients who were obviously suffering from trauma and would become triggered and act out included multiple staff members restraining/tackling a 14-year-old girl. There were a lot of conflicts between patients, including several fights and a patient getting jumped. The staff did not have any skills of conflict management with those patients. There was a day were multiple people were very triggered by all the conflict happening and the staff did nothing. There was a boy there, who was my roommate at a point, who struggled with severe self-harm and inflicted some pretty nasty wounds on himself. While he did so, a staff member or two crowded/cornered him in attempt to get him to stop. On the day where a patient was jumped by other patients, a new staff member entered our ward and she was extremely rude, inpatient, and unnecessarily argumentatice with the patients. She made sarcastic comments about how much she loved working with kids. She felt the need to make herself appear tough so that the teenage patients "wouldnt try anything"--this is a grown adult woman. In general, the patients were supporting eachother more than the staff were. I made some very close friends here, but only because I could not rely on the adults there (although my social worker was pretty awesome). The patients werent allowed to touch eachother at all, even when offering comfort to their friends who were struggling. Additionally, I was placed on the medication Latuda, which is used to treat bipolar depression and schizophrenia. I have neither of those disorders and do not have a personal or family history of symptoms from those disorders. The doctor tripled my dose over the course of my stay. They were very big on prescribing meds to patients here. To get released, I either had to be sent to a residential or an IOP program--these things both cost a lot of money and are a huge commitment of time. There was a plethora of other issues--not even getting into the way they treated the more high-support needing patients or patients with physical health conditions (and their system with negotiating care with parents/family). They frequently deadnamed and misgendered their trans patients, including myself. Onto the positives: - The food here was hit-or-miss but sometimes it was really good. - we had coffee and hot chocolate packets - great social workers (shout out to L!!) - some of the staff members were genuinely nice people

Basic care and treatment for Medi-Cal subscribers like me. Looked like they had a pretty good or responsible work ethic especially for a full house. I didn't want to have stayed as long as two weeks but they are flexible with a treatment plan as long as you take initiative. Old appliances and facility but are getting some new installments since I was there last week. Nice hospital staff and many fresh faces. I had no problems here besides the noise level.