Q: What is a 5150 hold?
A: It is a section number, not a diagnosis and not an arrest. Welfare & Institutions Code §5150 lets a peace officer, a member of the attending staff of a designated evaluation facility, or a specifically designated county professional take a person into custody for up to 72 hours of assessment, evaluation and crisis intervention — but only on probable cause that, as a result of a mental health disorder, the person is a danger to others, a danger to themselves, or gravely disabled.¹ Your own outpatient therapist, in private practice, is almost never one of those people; they can call for an evaluation, which is a different thing from writing one.
"Up to" is the operative phrase. The facility has to evaluate you as soon as possible, and it is required to release you before the 72 hours are up if the professional in charge decides you no longer need the hold.² Many holds end well short of three days. The clock runs from when detention starts, not from admission.
Two rules inside §5150 that almost nobody is told. First, imminence is not the test: the statute says the assessing professional may not confine the probable-cause question to danger of imminent harm.¹ Second, and cutting the other way — if you can be properly served without being detained, §5150 says you are to be offered evaluation, crisis intervention or other services on a voluntary basis instead.¹ Voluntary care is the default the statute writes in, not a favour.
What "danger to self or others" means. The LPS Act does not define it. There is no statutory list of words or acts that trigger a hold, which is why two clinicians can reach different conclusions on the same facts — and why this page will not give you a definition that the law does not contain.
Rights that attach immediately. You are entitled to a patient advocate.³ If the hold is extended by certification for intensive treatment — up to 14 more days under §5250 — you get a certification review hearing within four days of the certification being signed.⁴ Separately, you may petition for habeas corpus, and the court must hold an evidentiary hearing within two judicial days of the petition.⁵ Ask for the patient advocate by name; that is the person whose job is these deadlines.
Writing your preferences down beforehand. California has no separate psychiatric-directive statute, but the ordinary advance health care directive does cover mental health care, and it is the one document that puts your medication history and your chosen agent in a stranger's hands at 2am. It cannot stop a hold, and it cannot pre-consent to one. What it can and cannot do →
Do this: if this is happening to someone you love, write down the date and hour the hold started, ask the unit for the name of the patients' rights advocate, and ask whether a §5250 certification is being considered — because that is the point at which the four-day hearing clock starts. If it is you, and you are not in danger right now, 988 is the number that does not involve police.
Sources
- Welfare & Institutions Code §5150 — who may take a person into custody, the 72-hour limit, the probable-cause standard and the three grounds; §5150(b): the professional "shall not be limited to consideration of the danger of imminent harm"; §5150(c): voluntary services where the person can be properly served without being detained — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
- Welfare & Institutions Code §5152 — evaluation "as soon as possible" and release before 72 hours where the hold is no longer required.
- Welfare & Institutions Code §5325 — the rights list for a person detained for evaluation and treatment, including access to a patients' rights advocate.
- Welfare & Institutions Code §5250 (certification for up to 14 days of intensive treatment) and §5256 (certification review hearing "within four days" of certification).
- Welfare & Institutions Code §5276 — habeas corpus petition; the court "shall hold an evidentiary hearing within two judicial days."
All sections read 17 August 2026. This page describes the statute; it is not legal advice, and the law here turns hard on facts.