The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is announcing its new fellows today and one of the winners of these so-called "genius grants" is Elyn Saks. Saks is Associate Dean and Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at Southern Cal's Gould School of Law. Saks battles with schizophrenia and acute psychosis and authored the 2007 volume, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. Reviews of the book and video of Saks talking about the book are here.
This from the ABA Journal's report on the news:
Saks recalled in an interview with the Washington Post that, after her first psychotic episode at the age of 18, she was told she would never be able to live and work on her own. She told of an episode at Yale Law School when classmates found her singing on a rooftop outside the law library. "I thought there were beings in the sky controlling my brain," she said.
Saks told the Associated Press she plans to use the money to continue educating people about the lives of people with mental illness. ''I want to make a difference in how people see schizophrenia,'' Saks said. She is working on a second book about high functioning people with schizophrenia.
Congratulations to Dean Saks.
Although I've not read The Center Cannot Hold…, I have read two utterly remarkable and indispensable (at least for those with an interest in their topics) books by Saks that I cannot recommend highly enough: Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law (1997), and Refusing Care: Forced Treatment of the Mentally Ill (2002). The latter book might be seen as an exemplary model of books of this sort, as she covers the myriad and messy legal, ethical, scientific and medical issues in a manner that combines a philosophical temperament with a seasoned social scientist's grasp of the relevant literature. As Kenneth Kress says in his blurb from the back jacket cover, she displays "…an admirable breadth of knowledge in both psychiatry and mental health law, strong analytical skills, striking creativity, and an unparalleled sensitivity to the perspective of persons who suffer from mental illnes."
It's gratifying to see her work recognized in this way (and in the end of course we'll all reap the fruits).
Too bad she doesn't use her formidable research skills to talk about the right to receive treatment as well as the right to refuse. Lack of treatment is the bigger problem in the US today?
Also use those skills to discover the efficacy of the (new) medications?