LA County Mental Health Crisis Resources and Hotlines

Recognizing a Mental Health Crisis

A mental health crisis is any situation in which a person's behavior puts them at risk of harming themselves or others, or prevents them from being able to care for themselves or function effectively. Crises can take many forms, including suicidal ideation, psychotic episodes, severe panic attacks, manic episodes, and situations where untreated mental illness and substance use combine to create dangerous instability.

Recognizing a crisis is the first step toward getting help. Warning signs include talking about wanting to die or having no reason to live, increasing substance use in the context of worsening mood, giving away possessions, sudden calmness after a period of severe depression, hearing voices or expressing delusional beliefs, and engaging in reckless or self-destructive behavior.

Mental health crises often co-occur with substance use. Individuals may use drugs or alcohol to cope with psychiatric symptoms, or substance use may trigger or worsen mental health episodes. The interaction between mental illness and substance use creates a level of risk that exceeds either condition alone.

Essential Crisis Hotlines and Resources

Los Angeles County maintains a comprehensive network of crisis intervention resources accessible by phone, text, and in person. These services are free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Emergency Psychiatric Services

When a crisis requires immediate in-person intervention, LA County has multiple Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) locations where individuals can be evaluated and stabilized. These facilities provide crisis assessments, short-term stabilization, and connections to ongoing treatment.

Major PES locations in LA County include those at LAC+USC Medical Center, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and several private hospital emergency departments with dedicated psychiatric units. Individuals can be brought to these facilities by ambulance, by family members, or can walk in.

A PES evaluation can result in a voluntary admission for further treatment, an involuntary hold (5150) if the individual meets criteria for being a danger to self or others or gravely disabled, or a discharge with outpatient referrals and a safety plan.

Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Crises

When mental health crises occur alongside active substance use, the situation requires providers trained in both domains. An individual experiencing a psychotic episode while intoxicated on methamphetamine, or a suicidal individual in alcohol withdrawal, presents clinical challenges that exceed the scope of either mental health or addiction treatment alone.

Integrated treatment that addresses both mental health and substance use disorders simultaneously produces significantly better outcomes than sequential or parallel treatment models. Dual-diagnosis programs recognize that the two conditions are interrelated and must be treated together for either to improve.

Trust SoCal's dual-diagnosis program treats co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders through an integrated clinical approach. Our team includes psychiatrists, licensed therapists, and addiction counselors who collaborate to develop comprehensive treatment plans. Call (949) 280-8360 to discuss dual-diagnosis treatment options.

After the Crisis: Connecting to Ongoing Care

A crisis is often the catalyst that leads individuals to seek the ongoing treatment they need. The period immediately following a crisis is a critical window during which motivation for change is highest and barriers to treatment feel most surmountable.

Warm handoffs, in which the crisis provider directly connects the individual to a treatment program rather than simply providing a phone number, dramatically improve follow-through rates. If you are leaving a PES or crisis stabilization unit, ask your provider to arrange a direct referral rather than leaving with a list of numbers to call.

Trust SoCal can accept warm referrals from LA County crisis services and facilitate rapid admission for individuals who are clinically appropriate for our programs. Our admissions team is available around the clock to coordinate transitions from crisis services into structured treatment.