BRITNEY SPEARS - STEEL ADVISES SPEARS' PARENTS TO SEEK FURTHER TREATMENT

Novelist DANIELLE STEEL is urging the parents of troubled star BRITNEY SPEARS to keep seeking mental health treatment for their daughter - or her psychiatric problems may end her life. The author's own son Nick Traina was diagnosed at 16 with bipolar disorder, a condition that propelled him into a deep depression leading to his suicide in 1997, aged just 19. And Steel believes Spears - who was placed on psychiatric evaluation at a Los Angeles hospital last month (Jan08) but released just six days later - may also suffer from the debilitating illness. She says, "I feel so sorry for her. If it is the case (that she has bipolar), she can get on track with the right treatment and medication. "In the case of Britney Spears' parents what you have to be is extremely loving, extremely resourceful and extremely persistent and every time you're defeated, just go at the problem again." And the romance writer is also calling for the U.S. laws to be changed to allow mentally ill patients to be committed against their will: "Usually bipolars present extremely well and they can bounce into court ... look very together and be a complete mess three hours later on the streets somewhere. There's nothing you (as a parent) can do."