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Going Public with Schizophrenia

By Alexandra Brown | May 2, 2008
News

Law Office Management

May 2, 2008

Going Public with Schizophrenia

Elyn Saks discusses law and schizophrenia-from a personal perspective.


     
Elyn Saks may be one of the few American legal scholars to publicly discuss life with schizophrenia. But she is hardly the only accomplished professional living with the disease, according to the University of Southern California law professor.
      In her new memoir, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness, Saks chronicles her academic career against a backdrop of battling delusions, psychosis, and psychiatric hospitalizations. She wants her book to dispel stereotypes and myths while offering hope and understanding, encouraging more people to openly discuss mental illness.
      "I feel that there is so much stigma, particularly with schizophrenia, that we need to have people coming forward and put a human face on the disease," she says. "I hope that more people come out."
      Saks, 52, graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University and went on to earn a master's degree in philosophy at Oxford University and a JD from Yale Law School. An associate dean of research at USC, Saks believes more schizophrenics could reach their full potential if given the resources, and if clinicians did not counsel them to lower their expectations. Professional satisfaction-along with antipsychotic medications, psychoanalysis five times weekly, and a network of friends and family-have all contributed to her own health and success, she adds.
      Reaction from Saks's colleagues has been "strongly enthusiastic and supportive," says fellow USC law professor Michael Shapiro, although he cautions that not everyone with the disease will have the determination or internal resources to succeed that Saks had. Still, Shapiro thinks Saks's story could encourage some to "accept the need for appropriate medication," adding, "The more this message gets around, the more it neutralizes the irrational hostility to the very idea of medication for mental disorders."
      Saks currently is completing a PhD in psychoanalysis at L.A.'s New Center for Psychoanalysis. This additional education-like her personal experiences-will greatly influence her future legal scholarship on topics such as the lawyer-client relationship and informed consent, she says. "There are lots of places where I think psychoanalysis can inform the law," she explains. "The law depends on a theory of the person, and analysis offers a rich theory of the person."
     
     
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Alexandra Brown

Daily Journal Staff Writer

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