Dr. Phil says Britney Spears needs 'psychological intervention'

• Related Story: Britney Taken to Hospital in Ambulance

  (Source: nydailynews)

  Melted-down pop tart Britney Spears split from a Los Angeles psych ward Saturday after a surprise visit from celebrity shrink Dr. Phil.

  The pop star patient left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. after an hourlong chat with Phil McGraw, who sources said was summoned to the hospital by Spears' desperate relatives.

  "My meeting with Britney and some of her family members this morning in her room at Cedars leaves me convinced more than ever that she is in dire need of both medical and psychological intervention. I am very concerned for her," McGraw said in a statement to "Entertainment Tonight."

  By the time he arrived, the troubled 26-year-old starlet had already been officially released from the hospital and was packing inside her room, McGraw said. After their heart-to-heart, the TV shrink escorted Spears out of the hospital and into a waiting car.

  The platinum-selling singer had been strapped to a guerney, wheeled into the hospital's psych ward and placed on suicide watch a day earlier after refusing to turn her two sons Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, over to her ex-husband's bodyguards following a visit. She held police at bay for three hours, locking herself inside a bedroom with Jayden.

  A person in the house at the time told the Chicago Sun-Times that Spears had been drinking and popping prescription meds before her breakdown, and that son Jayden was inconsolable. "He started screaming ... and continued crying for just about the whole time she was in there. She did nothing to calm him down," said the Spears staffer.

  Spears was expected to be confined to the hospital for 72 hours, but ended up spending slightly more than a day in the ward. Before departing, she terrorized the hospital staff, screaming at them to release her, TMZ.com reported. She yanked out an IV line and refused to follow orders to lie down or sit still.

  McGraw is filming a special tomorrow about Spears' spiral into a personal hell. If he can get her to appear on the show, tentatively scheduled to air two days later, he could score big in the ratings.

  His attempts to stage an intervention for Spears date back several months. He had unsuccessfully reached out to Spears' mother, Lynne, to help earlier, according to a source close to the doc.

  But several sources questioned his motives.

  "This is exactly Britney's trouble," said one source who knows the shrink personally. "Does a troubled young woman who is already fodder for the media need a TV psychologist descending on her with camera crews? Isn't there any other psychotherapist in America who can help her without making a show out of her?"

  The intervention comes as Spears' public plunge reached new depths. When she was taken out of her Studio City home, her emotions were careening between laughing and hysterics.

  Officials at the hospital have declined to comment on her condition, citing patient privacy. But sources told the Daily News that two patients are placed in each room on the psych ward, the meals are potluck and patients have to make their own beds and do their own laundry.

  As McGraw and his troubled charge covertly skiddadled out of the hospital, Spears' mother was spotted in Louisiana visiting the grave of her sister, Sandra Bridges, 59, who died of breast cancer last January.

  Spears' life has been unraveling rapidly since her December 2006 divorce from Kevin Federline. She lost primary custody of her sons in October and all visiting rights immediately after her fit on Thursday night.

  Her family was shaken up again last month when it was revealed that her kid sister, 16-year-old Nickelodeon star Jamie Lynn Spears, is pregnant.

  Dr. Phil -- Brit's Family Asked Me to See Her
  Source: TMZ

  Dr. Phil just appeared on CBS' "Early Show" this morning, and said that he went to see Britney Spears and her family's request.

  Here's what he said about his visit on Saturday morning: "I want to sent the record straight. I went to see Britney at the request of her family. I talked to Lynne, Jamie, and Brian, because they were frustrated that she wasn't going to be held for a longer time."

  Asked how he had come to be involved in the saga, Dr. Phil said, "Thursday night, the phone rang, it was Lynne, clearly she was very upset. Any parent would be. I was first contacted by her family a year ago, and had maintained a running dialogue for the last year or so."