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 professional person in charge of a facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment, a member of the attending staff of such a facility, a designated member of a mobile crisis team, or another professional person designated by the county 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 many holds end well short of three days. The clock runs from when detention starts, not from admission.

But read the early-release rule carefully, because it is written as a limit rather than a promise. You "shall be released before 72 hours have elapsed only if the psychiatrist directly responsible for the person's treatment believes, as a result of the psychiatrist's personal observations, that the person no longer requires evaluation or treatment."² Where a psychiatrist and a psychologist have both examined you in a collaborative treatment relationship, either may authorise release — but only after consulting the other, and where they disagree, the hold continues unless the facility's medical director overrules the clinician who opposes release.² Any other professional authorised to release you may also raise release, with the medical director making the final decision.² So it is not "the professional in charge decides" on a whim: it is a named clinician's own observation, with the medical director as the tie-break that defaults to continued detention.

And the hearing does not wait for a 14-day certification. Since 1 January 2023, a person who is still held under §5150 and has not been certified is entitled to a certification review hearing within seven days of the initial detention, along with an advisement of that right and a meeting with an attorney or a county patients' rights advocate.³ On a 72-hour hold that is the right that actually applies to you. What happens after the 72 hours →

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, in the judgment of the facility's professional in charge, attending staff or county-designated professional, 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 — subject to that professional judgment — 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.⁴ 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.⁵ Note the wording: four days, with no "judicial" or "business" qualifier, and the clock runs from the certification, not from when you were detained. Separately, you may petition for habeas corpus, and the court must hold an evidentiary hearing within two judicial days of the petition being filed.⁶ 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 →

Before it gets to a hold. Mobile crisis response is a Medi-Cal benefit delivered through county behavioral health, and most counties now run a team you can call instead of 911 — though a mobile team can also place a hold, and there is no statewide number. What to dial, and what each number actually does →

If this keeps happening to the same person. A hold is an emergency measure, not a plan, and California has three longer-run legal routes — CARE Court, assisted outpatient treatment, and conservatorship — with very different entry doors. Who can start each one, and what none of them can 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

1. 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.
2. Welfare & Institutions Code §5152(a): a person "shall be released before 72 hours have elapsed only if the psychiatrist directly responsible for the person's treatment believes, as a result of the psychiatrist's personal observations, that the person no longer requires evaluation or treatment," with the collaborative psychiatrist/psychologist alternative and the medical director as tie-breaker in the same subdivision — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
3. Welfare & Institutions Code §5256(b), added by AB 2275 (Stats. 2022, Ch. 960), operative 1 January 2023 — a certification review hearing within seven days of initial detention for a person still detained under §5150 who has not been certified — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
4. Welfare & Institutions Code §5325 — the rights list for a person detained for evaluation and treatment, including access to a patients' rights advocate.
5. Welfare & Institutions Code §5250 (certification for up to 14 days of intensive treatment) and §5256(a) (certification review hearing "within four days of the date on which the person is certified" — four days, with no "judicial" or "business" qualifier).
6. Welfare & Institutions Code §5275 and §5276 — habeas corpus petition; the court "shall either release the person or order an evidentiary hearing to be held within two judicial days after the petition is filed."

All sections read on the operative text on 18 August 2026. This page describes the statute; it is not legal advice, and the law here turns hard on facts.

If you are the family on the outside, the unit must make reasonable attempts to notify next of kin of an admission unless the patient objects, and the person deciding on the hold must consider the history you can give. The hospital won't tell me anything →

Every statute page on this site, by situation — crisis, hospital, bills, work, home, school, family. California mental health law, by situation →

Inside the unit: Can they restrain me or put me in seclusion? → · Who is the patients' rights advocate? → · Who looks after my kids if I'm hospitalized? →

Related: Can my family force outpatient treatment? Laura's Law → · Can the hospital discharge me to the street? →

Before the hold — at the ER door: Can the ER turn me away in a psychiatric emergency? →

Before the 5150 is written: Can the ER hold me while I wait for a psychiatric bed? →

If you believe the hold was wrongful: Can I sue over a wrongful 5150? →