EP 1012 Mental Illness is Still So Misunderstood in America

About one-fifth of the adult population in America experiences mental illness in any given year, yet less than half of them receive treatment.  Often, our approach is to prevent disaster rather than foster positive outcomes for the patient.  And media coverage exaggerates the danger involved in dealing with most people who experience serious mental illness, like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, among others.  While we closed down many large facilities housing people with mental illness our community-based approaches have been spotty and often lacking a critical component–connecting people dealing with these conditions with others who have similar lived experiences.  Hundreds of thousands of individuals with mental illness live in jails and prisons when they would be better served by working with peer respites, stand-alone crisis centers and other innovative efforts now underway in various communities.  Our guest, University of Alabama Law professor, Fredrick Vars, is the author of “Through the Fire: How People with Mental Illness are Empowering Each Other.”  He speaks from his own experience as one who suffered a hallucinogenic break.  It’s an important discussion of a topic often left in the shadows.

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