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Mental Health Intervention · Psychosis, Bipolar Disorder, Severe Depression
Mental health intervention, for families of adults who will not accept care.
You have watched someone you love change, you have tried every gentle sentence you know, and the answer is still no. A planned intervention gives the family a different way in, with care already waiting on the other side of a yes.
A mental health intervention is a planned, professionally led conversation that helps an adult with serious mental illness, such as psychosis, bipolar disorder or severe depression, accept treatment they have refused. G3 Recovery prepares the family, arranges the right level of care in advance, and leads the conversation itself.
It is voluntary from start to finish. Nobody is restrained, tricked or taken anywhere. The work is in making a yes possible, and then making it count.
If someone is in danger right now
Call 911 if there is immediate danger to life. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org, to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which is free, confidential and open around the clock. An intervention is never the answer to an active emergency. Once everyone is safe, call us and we will help you plan what comes next.
Clear lines
What a mental health intervention is, and what it is not
Families come to us carrying three different ideas under one word. It helps to separate them early, because each one leads somewhere different.
It is not crisis response. Crisis services exist for the hours when someone cannot be kept safe: a mobile crisis team, an emergency department, a 988 counselor, a police welfare check. They stabilize. They are not designed to persuade someone into months of treatment, and they rarely have time to. An intervention is the opposite shape. It is scheduled, rehearsed and built around a destination, and it belongs to the stretch of weeks when your loved one is unwell but not in immediate danger. If you cannot tell which of the two you are facing, our guide on a crisis versus an intervention walks through the signs.
It is not involuntary commitment. A hold or a court order is a legal process with criteria written into state statute, and it is driven by a judge, a physician or law enforcement rather than by the family’s wishes. An intervention compels nothing. Your loved one can say no and walk out of the room, and the plan has to respect that. What the intervention offers instead is a decision made with dignity intact, which matters a great deal to whether someone stays in care once they arrive.
It is not an addiction intervention with a new label. The familiar model leans on consequences and boundaries, and assumes the person can see what their drinking or use is costing them. Serious mental illness often removes exactly that ability. We explain how the approach shifts in our guide to psychiatric intervention; on this page, the short version is that we lead with what your loved one still wants, not with what they have lost.
Who this is for
The families who call us about mental illness
Most of the adults at the center of these calls fit one or more of these pictures. You do not need a diagnosis in hand to call; describing what you see is enough to begin.
- Psychosis. Voices, fixed false beliefs, suspicion of people who were trusted last month, speech that has become hard to follow. Often a first episode in someone in their late teens or twenties, sometimes a relapse after medication was stopped.
- Bipolar mania. Days without sleep, spending that threatens the household, grand plans, risky driving. The person usually feels wonderful, which is precisely why they see no reason to stop.
- Severe depression. Not leaving the bedroom, not eating, not answering the phone, or talk of not wanting to be here. When it reaches that depth, weekly therapy alone is no longer enough.
- Co-occurring substance use. Alcohol, cannabis or stimulants layered over a psychiatric illness, so each one hides and worsens the other.
- A revolving door. Three hospital stays in a year, each ending in a discharge with a prescription that is never filled and a follow-up appointment that is never kept.
- No belief that anything is wrong. The person is sincerely certain they are fine, and every attempt to show them otherwise ends in a fight.
The scale of this is larger than most families realize. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that in 2022 an estimated 15.4 million adults in the United States lived with serious mental illness, 6.0% of all adults, and that 10.2 million of them (66.7%) received mental health treatment in the past year (NIMH, Mental Illness statistics). That leaves roughly 5.2 million adults with a serious illness and no treatment at all that year. Many of them have families who are trying, every week, to change that. Our guide to high acuity presentations describes each picture in more depth.
Many people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have anosognosia: a symptom of the illness itself that leaves them unable to recognize they are ill. It looks like stubbornness and it is not. Arguing the diagnosis feels to them like being told the sky is green, so the conversation we build asks for agreement on smaller, truer things instead: sleep, a job they want to keep, a sister they miss, a calmer house.
That shift changes the family’s role. You stop being the prosecution, presenting evidence, and start being the people who have noticed what your loved one is quietly afraid of losing.
When they do not believe they are ill
How G3 works
From the first call to an admission that holds.
Assessment
A confidential call with Matt or Hannah. We ask about symptoms, history, hospitalizations, medication, substances, weapons in the home and who in the family is closest. That last detail often decides who speaks first.
Clinical input
With the right releases, we learn what the treating psychiatrist or the last hospital already knows, and we confirm admission criteria directly with the receiving program’s clinical team, so nothing about the plan rests on guesswork.
Family preparation
Everyone who will be in the room is coached privately. Letters are written and rewritten. We rehearse calm answers to paranoia, to anger and to a flat refusal, and we agree in advance on what the family will and will not do afterward.
The day
Matt leads the conversation in person. The tone is quiet and specific. If symptoms escalate, the plan already says what happens next, including when to stop and step back.
Transport
A yes is fragile in the first hours. A trained companion travels with your loved one from the front door to the admissions desk.
Placement
The bed is confirmed before the day, at the psychiatric level of care the assessment calls for, and Hannah manages the case through admission and the first fragile weeks.
Matching the level of care
A yes only helps if the place it leads to can hold the illness in front of it. Inpatient units stabilize and discharge in days. Residential psychiatric programs treat over weeks or months. Partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs work for someone who can safely sleep at home. Choosing among them is a clinical decision, and choosing wrong in either direction tends to end with your loved one back home, less willing to try again. Our guide to psychiatric levels of care lays out each setting.
When substances are part of the picture, the program has to treat both conditions under one plan, with a psychiatrist who is genuinely present. We explain why that order matters in co-occurring disorders when the mental illness came first. Because we take no referral fees, our independent treatment navigation is paid for by you alone, and the only thing shaping where we point you is fit.
Voluntary engagement, or a legal route?
State law provides for emergency psychiatric holds and court-ordered treatment, with names, time limits and criteria that differ from one state to the next; each of our state pages below links the statute itself. The criteria are narrow by design, and a hold usually buys an evaluation rather than a course of care. Our guide to involuntary psychiatric pathways explains each mechanism and its limits.
How families choose comes down to a few honest questions we work through with you. Is there danger now, or a slow decline? Has your loved one ever agreed to help before, even briefly? Is there one person they still trust? Would a court order leave them in a better position six months from now, or simply leave them feeling betrayed by the people who signed it? Most of the time a prepared, voluntary conversation comes first, and the legal route stays in reserve. Sometimes the answer is both, in sequence. We are not attorneys, and when a petition is on the table we will tell you to speak with one licensed in your state.
Some situations cannot wait for a planned conversation. Call 911 for a suicide attempt, a weapon, violence or threats of it, a medical emergency, or someone who has stopped eating or drinking. Call or text 988 when you are worried about suicide or simply do not know what to do tonight. Your county mobile crisis team can come to the home in many places.
We also plan for risk inside an intervention: where the meeting happens, who is present, what is removed from the house beforehand, and the point at which we stop and call for help. Our guides on when it is an emergency and safety planning for high-risk interventions go further. For steady support between crises, the NAMI HelpLine (1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or text “NAMI” to 62640) offers free information and emotional support, and SAMHSA’s FindTreatment.gov lists state-licensed providers for mental and substance use disorders.
Safety first: 911, 988, and when not to wait
Getting there safely
Someone in a psychiatric crisis should not drive themselves to a program three states away, and a parent alone in the front seat is in a hard spot if doubt or paranoia returns at a rest stop. Our sober transport companions are prepared for psychiatric admissions as well as substance use ones, and stay until intake is complete. When the family, the patient and the program sit in different states, interstate intervention logistics explains how we coordinate it.
Who you will work with
Matt Gibson, a Certified Interventionist (CAI), leads every intervention: the preparation calls, the rehearsals and the conversation itself. Hannah Gibson, G3’s co-founder and Case Manager, manages the case once the answer is yes, from admission through the first weeks of treatment. Both are in long-term recovery, and both know from their own families what it is to be on either side of that room. You can read more about the team on our team page and in the Reclaim approach.
G3’s published guidance on mental health is reviewed by our clinical advisor, Meredith Meurer, LPC-S, LCDC, PSS. Her role is advisory review of what we publish; she is not part of the casework with your family. G3 is based in Austin, Texas, and travels to families in all 50 states.
You receive a flat fee in writing before you commit to anything. It covers the assessment, private preparation for each family member taking part, the intervention day, and treatment navigation through admission. Travel is billed at actual cost, and sober transport is quoted separately so you can see it on its own line.
The family is the only client. No hospital, residential program or marketing company pays us for a placement or a lead, so nothing in the fee buys influence over where your loved one goes. The first call is free, and you will leave it with a clear next step even if that step is not us.
What it costs
Start with one call
Tell us what is happening.
The first call is free and confidential, and you will leave it with a clear next step, even if that step is not us. (214) 927-2154.
Common questions
What families ask about mental health intervention.
Can you do an intervention for someone with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder?
Yes. These are among the situations we prepare for most carefully. We plan around the symptoms present on the day, keep the room small and calm, avoid debating the diagnosis, and confirm a psychiatric placement that accepts the presentation before anyone sits down. If your loved one is currently in acute psychosis or mania with danger present, we will help you pursue emergency care first.
What if they do not think they are sick?
That is common, and it is often a symptom rather than a choice. We do not ask your loved one to accept a label. We ask them to accept help with something they already care about, such as sleep, work, school or getting back on good terms with family, and we choose a program that can work with someone who still disagrees about the diagnosis.
Is a mental health intervention the same as involuntary commitment?
No. An intervention is a voluntary conversation; your loved one decides. Commitment is a legal process under state law, initiated through physicians, police or the courts depending on the state. We help families understand both and decide which fits, and our guide to involuntary psychiatric pathways explains the legal side.
What happens if they refuse?
The family holds the line it agreed on in preparation, calmly, and the offer stays open. We keep the placement and the logistics ready for the days that follow, because a no in the room often softens once the shock passes. If risk rises during that window, the plan already names the point at which you call 988 or 911 or consider a legal route.
Do you work with both mental illness and substance use?
Yes, and together is how we usually meet them. We plan for both conditions from the first call and only recommend programs that can treat both at clinical depth, with real psychiatric coverage rather than a line on a brochure.
Do you work outside Texas?
Yes. G3 is based in Austin and travels to families in every state. Preparation can start by phone and video the same day, Matt comes to you for the intervention, and treatment can be near home or across the country, wherever the right program is.
How much does a mental health intervention cost?
A flat fee, set out in writing before you commit, covering assessment, family preparation, the intervention and treatment navigation through admission. Travel is at actual cost and transport is quoted separately. We take no referral fees from any program.
Read further
Guides for families facing serious mental illness
Where we work
Mental health intervention by state
Choose your state
Each state page covers that state’s emergency hold and court-ordered treatment laws, its crisis lines, and how we plan travel to and from your loved one.
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.