Neurodivergent? Gender non-conforming? Then move along, you're not welcome here. I showed up, naive, miserable, and so eager to engage with the program that numerous staff commented on it. 6 weeks, a new mortgage, and every ounce of savings later, what do I have to show for it? A misdiagnosis that would haunt me for years, a recommendation to an actually competent program, and lots of new debts.
What can you expect at Menninger Clinic?
Pros:
-Comfortable facilities
-Decent meal options
Cons:
-Staff unwilling to respect chosen name/pronouns
-Homophobic staff that will take away TV privileges for watching a tame movie about *gasp* homosexuals!?!
-A treatment team with no regard for you and your needs
-A cookie cutter treatment program with absolutely no room for personalized care
-A philosophy that actively discourages inclusion/development of an external support network
-An attitude of superiority shared by all Members of staff I interacted with
More money than you know how to spend? Need somewhere to put your embarrassment of a child for a few months? Then check out this great opportunity! Want to actually improve your mental well being? Then I would suggest a hard pass unless you want to waste time and resources that could be used on actual treatment.
Here's some exciting things you can expect based on my own time as a patient:
-A complete misunserstanding of meditation and mindfulness in general
-Regular classes that give even the most underfunded public schools a run for their money
-Large concrete walls that keep out any unwanted publicity of your family's "little secret"
-A patient handbook last updated around the turn of the century. Need someone to tell you the expectations and rules? Too bad!
-Personal care perfect for crushing your last remnants of self esteem
-Respect ( sorry, couldn't get through this one with a straight face. Menninger Clinic only respects their back accounts)
-As many as 3 hours of treatment per day, wow!
-Refusal to provide any continuing care recommendations unless you finish their arbitrarily long program
-A well earned mistrust of numerous proven treatment methods based on their gross misapplication
All jokes aside, do not attend the Menninger Clinic if you want to improve. 3 years later, and I think I've finally worked through the trauma associated with my experiences at the Menninger Clinic. I can see the remnants of what was probably once a great program, but it's long since degraded into a public school counselor level of care. That's not even an exaggeration, at least my old school counselor had a net 0 impact, I genuinely believe Menninger Clinic set my treatment goals back by years. I still have flashbacks to red faced staff yelling at me for things that, as an undiagnosed autistic person, I didn't understand. You'd think the medical professionals would've noticed, having observed me 24/7 for 6 weeks in both a clinical and miliue environment, but I suppose a misdiagnosis that led me in the total wrong direction for years is the best I could hope for *apparently*. Menninger Clinic led me to mistrust proven treatment methods by applying them with all the grace of someone who took a weekend course at the learning annex. Personally and wholeheartedly, I believe a society that respected mental health would shut this facility down for patient abuse. But alas, we don't live in that society so predatory organizations like the Menninger Clinic are allowed to prey upon the sick and helpless.
Closing thoughts:
Menninger Clinic does not wish to help you.
Menninger Clinic does not respect you.
Menninger Clinic does not take responsibility for the damage they cause.
Menninger Clinic does not see you as a person.
Menninger Clinic is a predator, draining the life and money out of the poor saps who assume their reputation is deserved.
I'm writing this, years later, at recommendation of a REAL therapist, to help me find closure on this miserable chapter of my life. My time at Menninger Clinic has far reaching implications that damaged my faith in the mental health profession as a whole. I don't know what it was like 20 years ago, but the Menninger Clinic's practices reflect a gross negligence that I honestly believe should be criminal, something I would gladly repeat under oath if anyone ever found a way to prosecute them. I'll even contact my various psychiatric providers to sign something confirming the validity of my testimony.
If you only remember one thing from this,
DO NOT ATTEND MENNINGER CLINIC
My experience was awful. I have been diagnosed with Schizo by 9-10 board certified psychiatrists. My father has been abusing me for years over my psychotic condition, & pushed me to the point of suicide twice & told me he would never talk to me m again unless I gave him power of attorney. I think that’s really crazy & abusive for a 25 year old who is financially independent. I attempted suicide the 2nd time because of the abuse. Him & I had also agreed in writing to opening a trust fund for real estate with over $100,000 worth of my assets. After the suicide attempt my father was nervous that I would sue him because the abuse was really well documented, & he then coerced me into going to Menninger, & said he would pay for it himself. He then used $50K of my real estate money to pay for my treatment & told Cory Walker he paid for it. The very first thing he did was lie to admissions that I had a diagnosed drug psychosis. He’s not a good person, he justifies his hatred for homosexuals with religion, he drinks & drives, hates minorities, not a good guy. The moment I walked into the door, Cory Walker immediately pointed the finger at me & called me a drug addict, & didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt on my overwhelmingly diagnosed condition. She documented I was very delusional the entire time that I was at this clinic, & no sort of evidence indicated that my condition had improved - quite the opposite. She also documented a string of “persuasive” “overpowering” & “convincing” emails & phone calls with my dad that went on behind the scenes along the lines of “you need to send my son to rehab for his drug psychosis, & he’s a liar” because he wanted medical evidence to pin the suicide attempt on drug use because he was afraid I was going to sue him for abusing me. Cory was happily his best friend. She gave my abusive father the benefit of the doubt & started calling me a drug addict right away. She claimed that my lethal suicide attempt was just drug abuse, getting high, & completely neglected the issue. I did not feel comfortable at all with her. She claimed I was no longer in psychosis & therefore diagnosed me with drug psychosis, but, there is no medical evidence in my records to support that claim. My own doctor went through my file & said there was nothing in there at all to support a diagnose of pure substance induced psychosis as she documented that I was suffering from 9 present tense delusions. Cory lied to please my father & diagnosed me with drug psychosis wreaking havoc in every way imaginably possible & then coerced me into rehab & with my father by saying they would lock me up in a psych ward for 2 weeks if I refuses. My father got exactly what he wanted & spent $60K more of my real estate trust fund. She basically called me a liar, refused to document the emails / lies between my her & my dad that were used to make a misdiagnosis of substance induced psychosis, & she drained my trust fund while I’m in the process of getting approved for disability. She refuses to give me the email exchanges or document them in my medical records because she knows that they’re bad, & her lie got my social security claim denied despite overwhelming evidence. The SSA simply pointed to Cory’s lie & denied the claim. In light of the facts, Cory refuses to acknowledge her mistakes & would let me go through the highly stressful appeals process for my SSDI claim having to justify & appeal against the big lie from Cory. My actual psychiatric issues were completely neglected & she does not want to acknowledge this because “we’re Menninger” & we’re superior. Multiple of my psychiatrists literally disregarded her diagnosis & I was actually surprised that they didn’t even give her diagnosis a second thought. They knew it was a lie. What’s even crazier is that Cory documented the result of my clinical interview met the criteria for schizophrenia, & not substance induced psychosis. & what is beyond sad is that Cory Walker does not want to acknowledge her lies that are not supported by medical evidence, that she got my disability claim denied despite overwhelming evidence I have a serious disability & refuses to acknowledge the facts, the money she wasted, her inappropriate & abusive behavior. She would eventually let me be homeless before she would admit her mistakes. You don’t begin treatment with suicidal patients this way & you don’t lie to appease someone’s abuser. The reason that she said she gave me the substance induced psychosis diagnosis is not even documented in my medical records because she made it up. My father got his perfect lawsuit defense & drained my trust fund. Corey still refuses to give up the email exchanges between the two of them & used to make a fake diagnosis, & Cory knows this & thinks that leading a top hospital gives her the power to get away with anything. Cory should come clean to her lies & dishonest behavior, & try to make amends for the damage she has caused me & my family dynamic that I thought couldn’t get any worse. You cannot ruin people’s lives & then refuse to pick up the pieces because you’re worried about your reputation at the clinic than doing the right thing. Cory is disturbed, & I have experienced first hand that she is incapable of empathy. I would not go to this hospital if you are in a fragile state of mind or have serious issues. They may take your $50K & treat you like trash. They may mentally harm you. They severely mentally harmed me & did much damage I can’t even fit it all in this review. This clinic is not top 10 anything & Cory is not unbelievably smarter than 10 board-certified psychiatrists. Cancel Menninger.
My stay at Menninger about 5 years ago precipitated a near-lethal suicide attempt about a week after I left. The way I was treated there, particularly by my attending psychiatrist and my social worker (neither of whom appear to be working there anymore) was so traumatic that I lost any hope that my severe bipolar disorder could improve. They showed no compassion, empathy, or caring towards me. In fact, they were overtly hostile towards me.
Menninger markets itself as providing cutting edge psychiatric treatment for whatever psychiatric disorder ails you, even if you haven't responded to treatment in the past by other providers. In fact, Menninger's focus is the diagnosis of "characterological disorders." Their theoretical framework and thus diagnostic approach is heavily psychoanalytic. They're not too concerned about actual treatment. Which makes sense because 1 or 2 months is hardly enough time to "fix" your "character."
What this boils down to is that their attitude is: if you haven't responded to treatment for your psychiatric disorder so far, it must be because of your "character" - i.e. your as-yet-undiagnosed (which they will provide for a huge fee) personality disorder. From a certain perspective, this is essentially saying to patients: "The reason that you're not getting better is because you have an abnormal and maladaptive personality. You, yourself, is the reason that you're not getting better. Not due to any shortcomings of the treatment provided to you by your previous doctors, or the lack of good treatment options available."
When I was staying in the PIC unit, every single female on the unit (except one) was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Every male (except one) was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And those were their primary diagnosis. Not bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, eating disorder, addiction, OCD - all of which were represented by my co-patients. All the patients are encouraged in many group meetings to talk about their problems, so people readily shared the diagnosis they received at great financial cost. $2,000 per day when I was there. The average length of stay is between 30-60 days: that's $60,000 - $120,000 per stay. No, they don't accept insurance. After the culmination of 4-8 weeks of diagnosing, most patients were then discharged to further prolonged residential or rehab treatment programs.
When you read on Menninger's website for their outcome studies, keep in mind that any improvement after a Menninger stay may be almost totally based on the follow-up treatment, not directly due to their Menninger stay. And note that they send post-stay surveys to MOST (not all) patients. In fact, I never received a follow-up survey. But then, they probably already knew that I had tried to kill myself shortly after I left there.
When I tried to sue Menninger, the multiple Houston attorneys I contacted basically told me that the judicial system was so heavily favorable to doctors and hospitals in Texas that it didn't make financial sense for them to take my case. Google for the Houston Chronicle article about a patient who successfully completed a suicide while AT Menninger. There's another patient who managed to escape during an outing and apparently attempted suicide. Those actually became lawsuits. The leniency that Texas gives to the medical system is shocking and is discussed in the Houston Chronicle article. It's the reason that there's not more information about how Menninger fails its patients - information that would help someone decide if Menninger is right for them or not.
The Menninger Clinic is a psychiatric hospital which does wonderful work. The mission is to create a healthy world by excelling in the art and science of mental health care.
Their approach is embodied in a statement made by a leading MD there: "There is no health without mental health". Menninger also has a very successful addiction recovery program. It is also a Best Place to Work. I know, because I work there.