Mental illness in person and in policy
Elyn Saks had her first psychotic episode at the age of 18. With medication and other resources she graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University and went to earn a Marshall Scholarship and a master of letters at Oxford University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. from the New Center for Psychoanalysis. Today she is an associate dean and the Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California’s Gould Law School.
Saks will speak about her successful life with schizophrenia at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2, in Filene Recital Hall on Skidmore’s campus. The talk is free and open to the public. Earlier in her visit, she will talk with students in a criminal law course, Skidmore’s chapter of Active Minds, and the Pre-Law Society and will meet with staff in the health and counseling centers.
Along with books on the law and ethics of mental illness, Saks also wrote The Center Cannot Hold, her award-winning and best-selling autobiography about living with schizophrenia. The book’s subtitle, "My Journey through Madness," reflects the idea that severe mental illness can be navigated without defining or derailing one’s life. The path, she has explained, includes "medication (usually), therapy (often), a measure of good luck (always)—and, most of all, the inner strength to manage one's demons, if not banish them.” She argues that people with mental disorders can lead full, happy lives, “if we have the right resources.” See her TED talk at the following link.
Saks’s scholarship and writing won her a 2009 MacArthur “genius grant,” with which she funded the establishment of USC’s Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics, an interdisciplinary think tank to foster research and influence policy reform.
