For 20 years, Mental Illness Awareness Week, concluding today, has been used to lessen the stigma of mental illness, tell families how to recognize signs of illness and direct them to places that can offer diagnoses and treatment. That many people now recognize these illnesses is due in part to Congress proclaiming the week in 1983, which this year has the theme “Mental Illness and the Family.” But as op-ed contributors on the BDN pages this week have shown, more information is needed to help those families improve the odds of raising healthy children and detect the signs of illness when they do occur.

The best way to remove the stigma of mental illness is to remove its mystery. Yesterday, Bangor psychiatrist Janet Ordway observed, “It has been shown that the biological changes within our brains are just as real as the changes that go on in the pancreas in diabetes and the heart’s blood vessels during heart attacks.” That knowledge – that what is in our heads isn’t all in our heads – has significantly helped the public understand mental illness. But as “60 Minutes” senior correspondent Mike Wallace noted Thursday, “Physical illness can put you out of action for awhile; it’s often painful and debilitating.

But some mental illnesses are more painful and more debilitating. They can last longer and can be more difficult and expensive to treat.”

Mr. Wallace discussed the loopholes in current federal parity laws – laws that require insurance companies to treat mental illnesses the same as physical illnesses, a distinction that is often false in any event. He observed that Sen. Susan Collins has sponsored legislation that would close some of those loopholes. Recently, she introduced The Keeping Families Together Act, which would provide $55 million to improve services for mentally ill children and their families. The act may not be debated until early next year, but it is an important sign that Congress understands “our system for caring for such children is really in shambles,” in the senator’s words.

The Bush administration agrees. Its New Freedom Commission on Mental Health not long ago issued an important report on the state of mental-health treatment in the nation, encompassing many of the ideas about access to treatment, education and employment that advocates have sought for years. President Bush clearly understood the scope of the problem when, last year, he described three factors that prevented Americans from getting better care: the stigma that surrounds mental illnesses; unfair treatment limitations and financial requirements in private health insurance; and a fragmented mental health service delivery system.

But not all the action should take place in Washington. Local and state organizations, such as NAMI Maine, are crucial not only to treatment and care but to overcoming the stigma about mental illness, making this week a special opportunity to achieve their goals.