Through the Fire

About one-fifth of the adult population in the U.S. experiences mental illness in any given year – that’s over 50 million people. Most shockingly, more than half of those people receive no treatment at all. In Through the Fire, leading expert in the field of mental health lawFrederick E. Vars reveals that some of the most promising reforms are coming from within the community of individuals living with mental illness.

Mental health touches every aspect of life in America: from police encounters to prisons, hospitals to housing, those suffering from mental illness are over-represented and under-serviced. Over a million people suffering from mental illness sit in jails and prisons; hundreds of thousands experience homeless; cost prohibits even more from receiving treatment or holding jobs or mortgages. Vars introduces readers to advocates on the frontlines of mental health reform working from inside the system: Meet Laura Van Tosh, a policy maker who, having herself experienced restraints and seclusion while involuntarily hospitalized, was able to convince the rest of the executive committee at one of the largest psychiatric facilities in the country to discontinue both practices; hear the story of Anna Fiscus-Surita, who survived early childhood trauma, substance use issues, and homelessness before running a short-term residential respite staffed entirely by people with lived experience.

In this personal and compassionate survey of mental health in America, Vars highlights progressive solutions to our mental health crisis bolstered by his own experience inside the system after suffering a hallucinogenic break. Illustrating key reforms such as respite housing programs, unique peer-to-peer services, and Assertive Community Treatment (or “ACT”), a highly effective but underused model for supporting people with serious mental health problems outside of institutions, Vars shows that lasting change requires a paradigm shift: mental illness is an illness, not a character flaw. Empowering people with mental illness to become effective advocates and mentors for themselves and others may be the spark to fuel much-needed change.

Author Biography

Fredrick E. Vars is the Ira Drayton Pruitt, Sr. Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. He is a leader in the fields of mental health and firearm law. Professor Vars is the co-author with Ian Ayres of Weapon of Choice: Fighting Gun Violence While Respecting Gun Rights (Harvard University Press 2020). Professor Vars’s many scholarly articles have appeared in top journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Yale Law Journal. The Harvard Law Review published the essay in which he first described his confrontation with an armed police officer while psychotic. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and USA Today, among other places.

Before joining the University of Alabama School of Law faculty, Professor Vars practiced law for six years in Chicago and served as a law clerk for two federal judges. He earned his J.D. at Yale Law School and his A.B. in public policy at Princeton University (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). He lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with his wife, two children (including the Swiftie to whom this podcast appearance is dedicated), and dog, Henry.