Amanda Bynes to stay at mental health facility for ‘foreseeable future’

Los Angeles : Actress Amanda Bynes will reportedly be staying at a mental health facility in California for the “foreseeable future” because she’s found a centre she ‘likes’ and wants to continue working on her issues.

The 37-year-old ‘High School Musical’ star checked into a clinic in Orange County, California just days after being released to outpatient care following a stint in a different centre after being placed on a “5150 hold” for the second time this year – and now it’s been reported that she’s happy with her treatment and plans to continue working on her issues, reports female.first.co.uk.

A source told TMZ.com Amanda is “planning on staying at the centre for the foreseeable future as she continues working on herself and her mental health”.

The website also reported Amanda has graduated to the centre’s minimal supervision group which allows her to leave the facility on her own at certain times so she can go shopping or take a walk.

The report also suggests the actress “likes being at this facility” because she’s surrounded by staff and other patients after feeling too isolated at the apartment in Los Angeles where she lives by herself.

She’s believed to have initially checked into the facility because she felt she needed more help than the outpatient treatment was providing and wanted to be in a more “therapeutic place” rather than living alone.

The ‘Hairspray’ star was previously placed on a 5,150 hold in June after apparently calling police for help. It came just months after being placed on another hold back in March after she was reportedly found wandering the streets of Los Angeles naked. 

A 5150 psychiatric hold is designed to protect those with mental health disorders who could be considered a danger to themselves or others and allows them to be taken into care involuntarily to undergo psychiatric assessment and crisis intervention for a period of up to 72 hours.

Amanda has suffered mental health issues in the past and previously spent nine years under a conservatorship which was controlled by her mother Lynn.

The conservatorship began in 2013 after she was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric treatment facility in Pasadena, California following a public meltdown and a string of legal troubles. The protective order ended last year.