Her Treatment Could Last Another Year

Further sad news on the Amanda Bynes front. The former Nickelodeon star is currently being held in a medical treatment facility in California while her parents seek to prove to a judge that she is enough of a danger to herself or others to warrant involuntary psychiatric help. So far, they have succeeded in getting Bynes' treatment extended for two weeks, but apparently the current game plan is to get something a lot stricter and a lot longer than that. According to TMZ, the doctors allegedly treating Bynes want to hold her for an entire year in something called an LPS Hold, pending a full diagnosis.

Citing anonymous sources "close to the treatment," TMZ reveals that an LPS Hold is something that can only be granted at the request of doctors and only if Bynes is "gravely disabled as a result of a mental disorder or impairment by chronic alcoholism." Under the LPS, her doctors could keep her confined and medicate her without her consent. It's the same kind of hold that the doctors were granted over Bynes a year ago, which TMZ says expired in September.

The LPS would be a lot stricter than her parents' conservatorship, because they wouldn't be able to confine her or give her drugs. However, as a woman — or, rather, as a human being — I am uncomfortable with the idea of anything being done to Bynes without her consent. Of course, it's true that she is not in a position to give consent, as her current mental state has her believing that she isn't in need of any help and she had to be tricked into seeing her parents and doctors to begin with, but would a second LPS Hold really help Bynes this time around? Clearly it didn't work the first time and, in fact, might be the reason that she was so against any kind of return to psychiatric treatment.

On the other hand, Bynes is clearly suffering and anything that can be done to ease that suffering is probably a good idea. Her parents want what's best for her and if they agree with the doctors that an LPS Hold is the best way to help her then hopefully the second time will be the charm. The important thing is that Bynes gets the help that she needs so that we can see her happy and healthy once more.