by Keith Dixon

About the author: Keith Dixon is the chief executive officer of a San Diego– based managed mental health care provider.

It is a dreary fact, documented repeatedly, but one that still alarms: Mental illness and abuse of alcohol or other drugs is represented in as much as 20 percent of our adult population. Add in our seniors, children and adolescents (and perhaps those who hide such things from researchers’ questions), and the numbers become staggering.

For every person with a mental health problem—primarily depression, manic- depressive illness, severe anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and schizophrenia— an average of four additional people are affected by the person’s condition, and these conditions can sometimes prove fatal.

To some degree, all of us have been personally impacted by mental...