Just hours after Britney Spears’s camp announced that she was seeking psychological treatment, the pop star was in the midst of yet another public breakdown.

The trouble began Monday evening, when Spears and her confidante Sam Lutfi went for a short drive around Beverly Hills. When they returned to her Summit home at around 6 p.m., the visibly distraught singer – who appeared to be arguing with Lutfi – jumped out of the white Mercedes near the guard gate.

Spears, clutching her Yorkie puppy London, wandered around with tears in her eyes and, at one point, sat down on the curb. “She looked completely lost,” says an on-scene source. Throughout it all, the gathered paparazzi snapped away.

Wearing brown high heels, cutoff shorts and a plaid fedora, Spears then seemed to downplay the incident, saying, “I’m fine. I’m . . . having a nice time with my dog.” (She later hopped into a car with another photographer, Filipe Teixeira, who gave her a lift to Ralph’s supermarket in Studio City, before bringing her home. He and another photographer pal were then invited inside, where they spent the remainder of the night.)