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“Stigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a. Publisher's Summary Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be. The Center Cannot Hold is an opera (music by Kenneth Wells, libretto by Kenneth Wells and Elyn Saks) based on the memoir by USC Law Professor and MacArthur Fellow Elyn Saks. 'The Center Cannot Hold should be read by anyone interested in mental illness, irs treatment, the laws concerning ic, extraordinary lives, or simply a good read.' SAKS waving above my head. 'Come to the Florida lemon tree! Come to the Florida sunshine.

Why you should listen

As a law scholar and writer, Elyn Saks speaks for the rights of mentally ill people. It's a gray area: Too often, society's first impulse is to make decisions on their behalf. But it's a slippery slope from in loco parentis to a denial of basic human rights. Saks has brilliantly argued for more autonomy -- and in many cases for a restoration of basic human dignity.

The Center Cannot Hold Elyn Saks Themes

In 2007, deep into her career, she dropped a bombshell -- her autobiography, The Center Cannot Hold. In it, she reveals the depth of her own schizophrenia, now controlled by drugs and therapy. Clear-eyed and honest about her own condition, the book lent her new ammunition in the quest to protect the rights and dignity of the mentally ill.

In 2009, she was selected as a MacArthur Fellow.

Read more on io9.com: I’m Elyn Saks and this is what it’s like to live with schizophrenia »

What others say

“Saks has worked for years advocating for men and women with psychological illnesses, and she wrote this brutally honest book partly to make a public statement that no one suffering from any disorder, mental or physical, should be stigmatized.” — E. Bukowsky, Amazon.com reviewer

Elyn Saks’ TED talk

I n this engrossing memoir, Saks, a professor of psychiatry at U.C.–San Diego, demonstrates a novelist's skill of creating character, dialogue and suspense. From her extraordinary perspective as both expert and sufferer (diagnosis: “Chronic paranoid schizophrenia with acute exacerbation”; prognosis: “Grave”), Saks carries the reader from the early “little quirks” to the full blown “falling apart, flying apart, exploding” psychosis. “Schizophrenia rolls in like a slow fog,” as Saks shows, “becoming imperceptibly thicker as time goes on.” Along the way to stability (treatment, not cure), Saks is treated with a pharmacopeia of drugs and by a chorus of therapists. In her jargon-free style, she describes the workings of the drugs (“getting med-free,” a constant motif) and the ideas of the therapists and physicians (psychologist, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, cardiologist, endocrinologist). Her personal experience of a world in which she is both frightened and frightening is graphically drawn and leads directly to her advocacy of mental patients' civil rights as they confront compulsory medication, civil commitment, the abuse of restraints and “the absurdities of the mental care system.” She is a strong proponent of talk therapy (”While medication had kept me alive, it had been psychoanalysis that helped me find a life worth living”). This is heavy reading, but Saks's account will certainly stand out in its field. (Aug.)

The Center Cannot Hold Pdf

The Center Cannot Hold Elyn Saks Spark Notes