Napa Valley sees its share of celebrities — but few who owe their fame to autobiographical books.

Helping change attitudes toward those with mental illness is one of the goals of the Staglin Music Festival for Mental Health, held in September; the other is to raise money to research the causes of mental illness, and help find ways to treat and even cure this devastating problem.

Long ago, people believed that physical diseases were caused by sins or demons, but now we know that most are triggered by environmental factors such as microorganisms and chemicals. And recently, we’ve started to understand the important role in illness of defective genes inherited from our ancestors.

From Register Staff