Insight Behavioral Health Centers

Not able to help but provided referrals.

When a distraught person presents with severe anxiety and states that the world might be better off without that person, one would assume that a behavioral health center would respond appropriately. Insight Behavioral Health might have excellent programs and therapists, but in order to find out (and to trust the positive reviews on this site), they would have to get past the incompetent, inept and unprofessional intake staff. A person I know was at her wits’ end and was so hopeful to have found a resource that would help her cope and turn her life around. The intake person made her feel more anxious, gave her 3 pages of a 12 page packet to take home (the even pages/​sides were missing), and told her to come back the next day for a half hour meeting with a therapist. Returning for 30 minutes would have been burdensome for her, so she asked for a phone appointment. That call never came, and as her hope for help faded and her anxiety rose exponentially, I called to see what happened. More ineptitude and insensitivity followed. After a long wait on the phone, the therapist responded that, oh yes, there was an email about that, but the writer (presumably the intake person) had asked to see if a phone appointment would be okay. No immediate apology or acknowledgment that someone totally screwed up. Why on earth wouldn’t the therapist have read/​responded to her email? IF she had apologized… she was busy on a difficult case, etc., it would’ve been easy to chalk this up to understandable human error. The call was handled with arrogance and again — insensitivity. This was clearly a case that needed immediate attention. No follow up, no explanation, no anything. Feeble attempts were made to make amends… «I heard there was some confusion about the phone orientation that we scheduled with Gina at 4 PM.» NO… THERE WAS NO PHONE ORIENTATION SCHEDULED, AND YOU WERE THE ONES WHO WERE CONFUSED!!! «(The therapist) is going to reach out to you by phone sometime tomorrow since she didn’t get the opportunity to speak with you today» — even after I specifically told (the therapist) that we were no longer interested in going to Insight Behavioral Health Center. I am a reasonable person, but this was mishandled and literally could have been a question of life and death. Thank goodness life prevailed. Run… don’t walk… away from this place!!!
Post Script… The therapist never did make that follow-​up call.

Fantastic. I spent 9 weeks here in the CORE (compulsive overeating recovery effort) program, and it has helped change my life.
The initial consultation/​evaluation process was very straightforward. They could take me as early as a few days after my initial assessment, but I needed to wait to get work leave in order. They let me set the date and time I wanted to arrive, and I booked my flight.
I began in their Residential program which is a few blocks away from the N Michigan building. It’s a very nice facility (only 1 year old, i think), but the heat/​AC aren’t always reliable. Res allows males and females and fits 16 beds. All but one room has multiple beds in it. Typical residential set up/​rules, but you do get electronics time after 5. Staff was fantastic. There are therapists there all the time (except overnight) and behavioral health counselors and a nurse there ²⁴⁄₇.
I will say that as I was leaving residential, there was a lot of staff turnover and things got rough. I’m sure they’ve improved it by now.
In CORE, you walk over to the N Michigan building for programming on weekdays (they’re getting their own res sometime soon). It was nice to get out everyday. You do programming with the PHP and IOP people until 430. You eat lunch and a snack with them. I enjoyed having mixed patient levels.
The CORE staff were amazing. You could tell they really cared about you and knew their stuff. We learned a ton of skills and did many scary yet worthwhile exposures. I felt like the philosophy/​treatment they recommend fits so well into a practical life. They really want to set you up for success. You learn all about the disorder and food and genetics, and the science of it. They are very good at explaining why we’re doing/​learning certain things which I liked.
The Director of the program, Dr. Friedman, is more than worth the price of admission. I was lucky enough to have her as my therapist during my 9 weeks. Her knowledge of the subject is amazing. I wish my brain was more of a sponge, so I could have soaked it all up. She shares her own experiences with food and life which help you see that you don’t need to be perfect to be a well adjusted/​healthy person.
At times, things did feel unorganized. Some staff would say different things than another regarding the treatment. We had to switch rooms a lot due to a massive influx of patients at the midpoint of my stay. I think most of that can be chalked up to growing pains as more people discover the program. In the end, it didn’t hinder my treatment (probably helped in the end).
Once you leave residential, they have transitional housing next to Millennium Park. It’s a very nice location and community to begin practicing what you learn. Dinners are provided most nights of the week. Felt a bit like the college dorm vibe.
I can’t recommend this place enough. I’m very glad I took the chance to go there.

Amazing program, wonderful and caring staff, INCREDIBLE therapists, supportive fellow patients, beautiful urban facility, I could go on and on! Seriously though, this program is both effective and life-​changing. It’s really really hard work, but in my opinion it’s absolutely worth it. I’m writing this review primarily because I know that when I was looking at this program and deciding whether to admit, all I wanted was to hear about other people’s experiences. I did MAP (Mood and Anxiety) residential, PHP, and IOP. All levels were helpful. Groups for MAP included Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Anxiety Management, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Exposure and Response Prevention, Mindfulness, Movement, Phases of Change, Narrative Group, and Art Therapy. There are also Substance Abuse groups, Process Addictions groups, and an IOP Trauma track for those interested. They have supported apartments for all of the outpatient adult programs if that’s of interest to you, although I didn’t do them. Heard great things about the community there, though.
Also, in spite of what some of the other reviews say, I haven’t had a single issue with billing, so I’m not sure what people here are talking about honestly. In fact, they’ve offered me many scholarships to help with my co-​pays, which has been awesome and extremely helpful! I feel like the only people who come on Unilocal to review treatment providers are ones who have something to complain about. Everyone I’ve met in treatment so far has honestly had a really positive experience and has all good things to say about the program. So, take the negative reviews with a grain of salt. :P

Insight quite literally saved my life!!! I spent more years at Insight than any individual writing any review. I began with Dr. Susan McClanahan shortly after she founded insight. It’s been more than 8 years that I’ve been seeing her. I participated in the eating disorder groups and the mood and anxiety groups and lived in the transitional living apartments. I’m happy to say that I’m free of the eating disorder for 5 years! I no longer suffer from major depression or anxiety. When I first came to Susan and Insight, I was a mess. I have a history of extensive childhood sexual and physical abuse. Susan and the Insight family took me in. I became part of their family. Susan and the team worked tirelessly for years to keep me safe, to help me confront my fears and demons, to repair family relationships, to help me feel anger in a healthy manner, to find my capacity to forgive and let go, and most of all to move past my self-​destructive behaviors to a place where I no longer live in crisis. I’m learning to love myself and to dream of a happy life full of things I never thought possible! Susan is the most amazing person I’ve ever met! And she’s built a community at Insight that is based on a genuine desire to help clients shed destructive ways and patterns and embrace health and life!!! Trust me! I have been one of the longest clients — unlike other reviewers. I owe my life to Susan and her team at Insight — literally!!! When I hit rock bottom some time ago due to my physical disabilities (severe, debilitating chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and severe insomnia), Susan got me to the hospital, where she and other Insight staff visited me while I was unresponsive. One staff member even sang «Over the Rainbow» to me while I was unconscious. How touching! I did recover –Thank God! Fast forward — far forward — and today I’m alive, well, happy, and amazingly stable and healthy. This work takes dedication and commitment. If you want to get your life back, if you want to be free of destructive voices and patterns, then this is the place to come because they are faithfully dedicated to helping YOU become healthy and whole! And they will stand with you through thick and thin. I know. When I began with Insight, I was afraid, unable to trust, wrestling with a fear of abandonment, and felt like damaged goods. My life has done a 180! I trust Susan and Insight implicitly; I’m confident they will not abandon me — no matter what, I’m becoming brave, I’m daring to dream, and I’m facing my old fears. I am a walking testimony to their expertise, goodness of heart, dedication, and results! I owe my life to them — literally! And now it’s my joy to pay it forward! And remember — you will get out of it what you put into it!

Since I left, they’ve changed staff and changed their programs and it has made SUCH a different. My new therapist from Insight is so wonderful and helpful and I feel like I have a good connection with her. All of the changes they have made have been great, and the way they present DBT now seems to be rooted so much more in the real world. The activities are more hands on, without the terrible triggering-​ness of it. Most of the time I get frustrated, it has to do with my insurance making things difficult. There switch in staff seems to have brought in professionals who consider this less of just a paycheck, and more of a chance to really help their clients. They’ve also mad it easier to connect with the other people in your groups as well.

I found out about Insight as a recommendation for continuing therapy when I was being discharged from an in patient stay in the hospital. To be honest, between the negative reviews on Unilocal and the dearth of detailed information on the MAP program (would love to have seen sample session materials, a more detailed description of what you can expect to experience at different levels of care, an idea of the different sessions they offer, etc.) and what it’s actually like on the ground to be a patient, I dragged my feet on signing up for a few weeks. I decided to go for it a) because my insurance was covering almost all of it, and b) I couldn’t keep going the way I had been going in life — there was really nothing left but my depression, so there was not much left to lose.
That was two and a half months ago that I started, and I feel like a different person now. I started in the IOP (intensive outpatient) program attending four three-​hour sessions a week, plus continuing to see my outside therapist and psychiatrist. When I started I was either repressing or denying a lot of the issues I was dealing with, and the groups helped me make incremental progress pretty quickly. Depending on the group, the typical session involves learning a concrete skill or a new way of approaching a situation that can tend to be challenging when dealing with anxiety, depression, or other mental health situations, and discussion on what you’re learning. The topics change from week to week, so you’re always learning something new. For most groups half of the time is reserved for ‘process,’ where group members can share a struggle, concern, question, etc. and receive feedback from other group members and the facilitator (s). It can be daunting at first to share really difficult personal problems with strangers, but it has helped so much, and I warmed up way more quickly than I expected. I’m now down to the OP (outpatient) program due to the progress I made in IOP.
I know some people complain about this or that, but I’ve had a really fantastic experience.
* Groups range in size from three to maybe thirty or more, but for the larger groups, the skill is learned in a larger group context with multiple facilitators, and then people are split into much smaller groups of around seven or so, max, for process time. Most groups are towards the smaller side; some groups (the Saturday group for me) just get big because clients from multiple levels of care are in the same group.
* I see an outside therapist, not one from Insight, but the coordination between Insight and my therapist has been good, and I still check in one on one with a member of the Insight staff periodically.
* I have never had problems with insurance or billing or overbilling or anything like that.
* Each of the facilitators have their own style, and I of course have some that I jive with more than others, but I haven’t had any facilitators that have been bad or even mediocre.
* My overall experience with other clients in group sessions has been wonderful. I have found my fellow group members to be supportive, empathetic, happy to help however they are able, and really good at sharing new insights or skills or ways of thinking about issues that are brought up during discussion or process.
I’m still going through a really difficult time in life but I’m coping with it better than I have with far less significant situations in the past. It’s like so many other things in life, where you get back what you put in in terms of effort, but the staff and your fellow group members are there with you every step along the way. I’m more at peace with myself having worked through a lot of longstanding issues and am managing my depression and anxiety better than I ever have before. There is no way I would have gotten there without going through this program, so it’s a five star for me.

I would give this place ZERO starts if I could. They are horrible scam artists. I made an appointment and was told they accept my insurance. When I showed up for the appointment I ended up waiting for about an hour and then was told I wouldn’t actually see a psychiatrist– that their process was to see an intake counselor and then see what the counselor recommends. What a load of S$!T! The «counselor» talked to me for about 15 minutes then I was released and told to schedule my follow-​up, which I did. I received a call from their office the next day telling me that the counselor’s recommendation was for me to attend group counseling sessions three times a week (each session was THREE hours!!!), oh and by the way they made a mistake and do not actually take my insurance so they would be sending me a bill for the «services» I had received. I decided to ignore their recommendation (keep in mind I was there seeking help for mild depression. I think trying to sell me on NINE hours of group counseling WEEKLY after meeting with me for maybe 15 minutes was really pushing their luck), and wanted to meet with their psychiatrist per the appointment I had scheduled during my first visit. I showed up for the appointment later that week and after waiting for about a half hour I was told that they don’t actually have my name on their schedule for that day and there must have been a glitch in their system when they sent me the original confirmation. Despite the fact that I was already there they did not try to accommodate me, instead they told me that the next available appointment was three weeks from then, but while I was there they would be happy to take my payment for the appointment earlier that week as a convenience to me so that I don’t have to worry about receiving a bill later. Needless to say I did NOT pay them and did NOT go back. BEWARE!!! All they care about is taking advantage of people for money.

I’m writing an updated review–
The financial dept is terrible, and insurance fraud occurs here. I used to not know if they were just horrible at math, or if they were consciously overcharging people who are already having a hard time. I wish I could give them the benefit of the doubt, except that there is physical proof that this has occurred in my personal case and many other clients I’ve spoken to.
Moreover, there are some amazing therapists, and people who work here. I did not say all are great. It doesn’t feel good to say that everyone sucks, since everyone doesn’t. There are some highly qualified people who work here, and some people who just aren’t good at treating depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
In the past 5 years I have witnessed it go from genuine to posh, personal to impersonal, a practice to a business. With that said, it did help me a lot at the time, I am tremendously thankful, and they have probably saved my life at times. Its truly unfortunate that all these shifts occurred.
If thats not enough, My entire treatment team no longer works there… o_O…YEAH.
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Thankyou for your reply Susan. I’m sure I’ll see you around at some point or another from time to time.

I can’t warn you enough to stay away from this place. It is a money-​making racket (but please enjoy the Room & Board décor), not a place that will try to help you.
I’m not saying there aren’t good therapists here, but some of the people at the top and in the financial department are crooks. My credit card on file with them was stolen, and when I tried to get in touch with someone over there to give them my new card information to make my payments, they literally NEVER answered the phone and instead sent my file to collections in about one week. Talk about trying to help someone with depression. When I continuously tried to call them to pay my bill, they still ignored me. They also sent me bills of other patients (HIPAA VIOLATION, ANYONE?) and accidentally included me on internal e-​mails about other patients (ONCE AGAIN, HIPAA VIOLATION, ANYONE?).
All I wanted to do was recover from an eating disorder and depression, and this place left me with a huge bill and feeling, once again, like no one is out there to help people like myself. I did make friends with several people in my program and they all had similar horror stories with billing. They send convoluted bills so that you cannot understand what you have/haven’t paid, and they often send bills even after you’ve paid your balance in it’s entirety, without explanation. They truly try to take advantage of people in their most vulnerable state.
Go elsewhere. And good luck.

Insight is amazing– the programs will change your life. I’m not kidding. You will learn skills on day one that you will want to apply to your life immediately, and you’ll be able to because of the way the material is presented. You’ll meet people that will become like family to you and you’ll look forward to going to group– trust me! Yes, it is hard and you will cherish every step of your journey. Just go and hang out in the lobby for a minute and you’ll feel the warmth and camaraderie. I’m so glad I’m here. my life is forever changed. I cannot recommend Insight enough. This is life training.

If you want to waste your time, rack up a huge debt, be treated like your an idiot, then Insight is the place for you. I can not even begin to express the grievances I have. In the 8 months that I was their, I didn’t get better but worse. After I left, I finally started to feel better. In order to not admit treatment wasn’t working for me, they kept blaming me for the lack of progress in treatment saying if I would just «make an effort» I would feel better. Now mind you, I never told anyone that I was just sitting around doing nothing. Actually I was making an effort but I guess not as big as they wanted to see so it was therefore my fault for treatment not working. Yes they did tell me multiple times to my face that it was my fault. Let me just say that not once did anyone there take any responsibility for my lack of progress even though I told them many times that the groups I was in was not helpful yet they ignored me because they have «psychology degrees» and are «way smarter than me». I had no say so in treatment at all. They decided what I would do and how often I would do it and if I disagree then they told me I could just leave the program. Which is what eventually happened. They are super expensive for the very crapping, oversize, disorganized way they run. The icing on the cake for me was when they lied and said I admitting to lying about attempting suicide when I never said this to them. I guess it made them feel better to say I lied then admit that the treatment was not effective. This really pissed me off since I have dealt with suicidal ideation a for many years and could not believe that a place that is suppose to help you would lie and say I was never suicidal in the first place. Seriously why the HELL would I lie about that. STAY AWAY or you will end up regretting the day you meet anyone from Insight. I wish I could give them zero stars for their crappy treatment.