I want to share a recent disturbing, humiliating, ...

I want to share a recent disturbing, humiliating, and dehumanizing experience at Palo Verde Behavioral Health.

I was looking for outpatient therapy and I chose Palo Verde from a list on my insurance company s website. I called and asked to make an appointment for outpatient therapy and they told me I had to come in for an intake appointment.

I went to a walk-in intake appointment at the location on Craycroft Road. I was taken back to speak with the intake person. Very quickly it was obvious that they did not offer what I was looking for outpatient talk therapy for depression and anxiety issues meeting once every two weeks or so. I got up to leave and the door to the outside was locked. The intake person said she had to talk to her boss and disappeared inside another locked door.

I knocked on the door and demanded to be allowed to leave. I felt like I had just been arrested. I used angry language and the boss told me he could have me admitted to the hospital for speaking to him like that.

I have had depression and anxiety since my early teens. I have been in and out of therapy over a 35 year period and I have never before been treated like a prisoner. In any other situation, the provider would have said, Please have a seat in the waiting room for five minutes while we finish with your paperwork, and I would have said yes since it s a reasonable request. The staff at Palo Verde treated me like a prisoner for the sake of paperwork. If they are this threatening, abusive, and heavy handed at an intake appointment for outpatient therapy, I fear for the patients that they legitimately have in their custody.