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Mental Health Intervention in Texas
Mental health intervention in Texas, from the state we call home.
G3 is based in Austin. For Texas families facing psychosis, mania or a depression that has turned dangerous, here is how emergency detention and court-ordered services actually work under the Texas Health and Safety Code, and where a prepared, voluntary plan does better.
Texas law gives families more direct access to the courthouse than most states do. An adult who has watched a loved one become dangerous can ask a judge or magistrate, in person, for an emergency detention warrant. That is a serious step, and a narrow one, and it is rarely the whole answer.
We are an Austin practice, so Texas is not a market we visit. It is where we raise our families and where most of our first calls begin. We help you understand the legal route, prepare the voluntary one, and keep both ready without either one deciding for you too early.
If tonight is dangerous
Call 911 for a weapon, violence, an overdose or a suicide attempt. For a mental health crisis that has not reached that point, call or text 988, or call the 24-hour crisis line of your county’s local mental health authority. In Austin and Travis County that is Integral Care at 512-472-4357. Planning can wait until everyone is safe.
Health and Safety Code, Chapter 573
Two doors into a Texas emergency detention
Chapter 573 of the Texas Health and Safety Code opens two routes. The first belongs to police. Under section 573.001, a peace officer may take a person into custody without a warrant if the officer believes the person has a mental illness and, because of it, presents a substantial risk of serious harm, shows severe emotional distress and deterioration, or cannot recognize symptoms or weigh the risks and benefits of treatment. The officer must also believe the person is likely to be seriously harmed or to harm someone without immediate detention, and that there is no time to get a warrant. The officer may form that belief from what a credible person reports, which is often you.
The second door belongs to the family. Section 573.011 says an adult may file a written application for the emergency detention of another person. The application has to describe the mental illness you believe is present, the specific risk of harm, why that risk is imminent, the recent behavior, threats or acts behind your belief, and your relationship to the person. Under section 573.012, you present it personally to a judge or magistrate, who may interview you. If the magistrate finds reasonable cause on every required point, including that the necessary restraint cannot be accomplished without emergency detention, a warrant goes to an on-duty peace officer for immediate apprehension.
Either way, the person is taken to the nearest appropriate inpatient mental health facility, or to one the local mental health authority deems suitable when no inpatient bed is available. A jail is not supposed to serve as that place except in an extreme emergency.
The 48-hour clock, and what ends it
Once the facility accepts your loved one, section 573.021 sets the limit. A person accepted for a preliminary examination may be held no longer than 48 hours after being presented to the facility unless a written order for protective custody is obtained, and the time spent waiting for medical care counts against those 48 hours. If the period runs out on a weekend or a legal holiday, the hold can stretch to 4 p.m. on the next business day. A physician has to examine the person as soon as possible within 12 hours of apprehension.
Admission past that examination requires a physician’s written statement that emergency detention is the least restrictive way to manage an imminent risk. If the physician does not make that finding, section 573.023 requires release. Families are often surprised how quickly that can happen. Your son can be home before you have finished telling his siblings where he is.
Chapter 574
Court-ordered mental health services, inpatient or outpatient
Any adult, with a certificate
Under section 574.001, a county or district attorney or other adult may file a sworn application with the county clerk. Only the county or district attorney may file one without a certificate of medical examination.
A hearing within 14 days
The court sets the hearing within 14 days of filing (section 574.005). Continuances are possible, but the hearing must happen by the 30th day.
45 or 90 days, then up to 12 months
A temporary order runs up to 45 days, or 90 if the judge finds the longer period necessary. An extended order, inpatient or outpatient, may not exceed 12 months.
Protective custody while you wait
Holding someone before the hearing takes a protective custody motion, which only the county or district attorney or the court itself may bring (section 574.021). A probable cause hearing follows within 72 hours of detention.
Texas, in other words, already has an assisted outpatient path built into the same chapter. A judge can order temporary or extended outpatient mental health services instead of hospitalization, and the evidence standard for any of these orders is clear and convincing proof. We explain how this compares with other states in our guide to involuntary psychiatric pathways. We are not attorneys, and when an application is likely, we will ask you to talk with a Texas lawyer or your county’s probate court staff first.
Texas keeps substance use on its own track. Section 462.062 lets a county or district attorney or other adult file a sworn application for court-ordered treatment of another person for chemical dependency, again with a certificate of medical examination unless the prosecutor files. The hearing on the merits is set within 14 days of filing.
If the court finds the allegations proved by clear and convincing evidence, section 462.069 commits the person to an approved treatment facility for at least 30 days and no more than 90. On the person’s own request, the judge may instead order participation in licensed outpatient treatment.
Many of the Texans we meet have both conditions at once: methamphetamine and psychosis, alcohol and bipolar disorder. Which chapter applies matters less than finding one program that treats both together, which is why our co-occurring guide starts with the psychiatric picture.
When drugs or alcohol are part of it: Chapter 462
Why most Texas families start somewhere else
The application to a magistrate is real power, and it asks you to swear that harm is imminent. Most of the families who call us are not there yet. Their daughter is sleeping three hours a night and spending the rent, or their husband has stopped eating and stopped answering, and nothing in the last week would meet the standard in section 573.012. Waiting for it to get worse is not a plan.
A voluntary intervention fits that space. Hannah confirms a psychiatric bed or program that matches the clinical need, Matt rehearses the family until the conversation is calm and specific, and then we sit down together with your loved one. If the answer is yes, the drive to admission is already arranged. If risk climbs instead, you already know which judge’s office handles mental health warrants in your county and what the application must say, so you are not learning Chapter 573 at midnight.
The same preparation helps after a hold ends. A 48-hour detention that closes in a release is often the most honest moment a family will get: your loved one is frightened, the facility has a working diagnosis, and the next step is still unclaimed. Our guide to psychiatric levels of care explains what that next step might be, from residential treatment to a partial hospitalization program near home.
Texas crisis lines and public lookups
911 when life is at risk. 988 by call or text for a mental health or suicide crisis. Texas also routes crisis care through local mental health and behavioral health authorities, and Texas Health and Human Services publishes every authority’s crisis number by county; those services run around the clock and include a face-to-face crisis assessment.
The metros, as HHS lists them. Travis County: Integral Care, 512-472-4357. Harris County: The Harris Center, 866-970-4770. Dallas County: North Texas Behavioral Health Authority, 866-260-8000. Tarrant County: MHMR of Tarrant County, 800-866-2465. Bexar County: The Center for Health Care Services, 800-316-9241 or 210-223-7233. Williamson and its neighbors: Bluebonnet Trails, 800-841-1255. El Paso: Emergence Health Network, 877-562-6467.
Psychiatric facilities. HHSC regulates private psychiatric hospitals and crisis stabilization units, and that page is the place to confirm a facility’s license type before you agree to it.
Substance use programs. HHSC also licenses chemical dependency treatment facilities and posts a downloadable directory of them on its facility regulation page. A license is a floor, not a recommendation, so we speak with clinical leadership before suggesting any program.
Working from Austin, across a very wide state
Because we live here, an Austin or Hill Country family can often sit down with Matt within a day. Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio are a short flight or a long drive, and El Paso, Lubbock, Amarillo and the Rio Grande Valley are planned like any out-of-state trip. Preparation starts by phone and video the day you call. Our guide to interstate intervention logistics helps when siblings are scattered between Texas and somewhere else.
Sometimes the right psychiatric program is in Texas and sometimes it is not. Either way, a person in a fragile state should not make that trip alone, so our sober transport companions stay through intake. Our treatment navigation picks the destination, and because no program pays us, the choice is shaped by clinical fit and your budget. The fee is flat and in writing before you commit, travel is billed at cost, and transport is quoted separately.
Common questions
Texas families ask us about the law.
Can I get an emergency detention warrant for my family member in Texas?
How long can a Texas hospital hold someone on an emergency detention?
Can a parent or spouse file for court-ordered mental health services?
Does Texas have involuntary treatment for drug or alcohol use?
Who do we call in Austin for a mental health crisis?
Is G3 actually based in Texas?
Keep reading
Texas pages and guides for the next step
The next step is a conversation
You do not have to figure this out alone.
One confidential call with G3 begins it. No pressure, no judgment, just a path forward.