Celebrity News January 08, 2008
Experts Say Britney Needs Help - Fast
It's the ending to the Britney Spears saga that no one wants to talk about: The possibility that the troubled young star is at the point of no return.
"Extra" is reaching out to two of the industry's most respected mental health clinicians, doctors Drew Pinsky and Keith Ablow, to weigh in on what Britney needs to do to recover from a series of breakdowns.
"I fear that there could be a really bad outcome here," said Ablow. "She needs a comprehensive plan and she needs confidentiality. She needs to be treated like a person, not a star."
For Fox News contributor Ablow, the Britney buck stops with mom Lynne, who he says must be a part of any recovery program.
"Here's the bottom line," said Ablow. "When your 16-year-old daughter is pregnant, and your older daughter is in a psychiatric facility and your grandkids don't seem well cared for, but you look pretty put-together, generally I start to look to the put-together person and say, 'I'd like to talk to you.'"
Ablow feels Brit should be weary of being pushed into the spotlight even more.
"That should be like a looking glass for her," he said. "She should say, 'Have they ever been purely interested in me as a child, as a young woman, as a developing person, or have I always been a commodity to them in part?' That could be the beginning of a walk toward the truth for her."
Pinsky says something needs to be done before it's too late.
"If she doesn't begin to turn it around in the next two to four weeks, I would say you're going to see her on a ventilator in an ICU somewhere," he says.
He added, "It looks as if we're watching an Anna Nicole Smith type case revolve in real time."
So can Britney be saved?
"Even with intensive treatment in a hospital environment, followed by, say, a year of residential treatment - which is the minimum of what she needs - her chances are sort of 50/50 of a sustained recovery," says Pinsky. "Without treatment, her survival is really in question."