Saks, Elyn R. 1955-

PERSONAL:

Born 1955. Education: Vanderbilt University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1977; Oxford University, M.Litt., 1981; Yale University, J.D., 1986.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of Law, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0071. E-mail—esaks@law.usc.edu.

CAREER:

Admitted to the Bar of the State of Connecticut, 1986; Connecticut Legal Services, Bridgeport, staff attorney, 1986-87. University of Bridgeport School of Law, Bridgeport, CT, instructor, 1987-89; University of Southern California Law School, Los Angeles, assistant professor, 1989-91, associate professor, 1991-93, associate professor of law, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences, 1993-94, professor, 1994-98, Orrin B. Evans professor of law and associate dean, 1998—; Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, clinical associate, 1995—. University of California School of Medicine, San Diego, adjunct professor of psychiatry, 2003—; Mental Health Advocacy Services, board member.

MEMBER:

American Psychoanalytic Association, American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, American Law Institute, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Jacques Brien Prize, Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, 2004; Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, University of Southern California.

WRITINGS:

(With Stephen H. Behnke) Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Interpreting Interpretation: The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1999.

Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2002.

The Centre Cannot Hold: A Memoir of My Schizophrenia, Virago (London, England), 2007.

Contributor to academic journals, including Ethics and Behavior, Public Affairs Quarterly, and Psychiatric Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

A trained psychoanalyst and a professor of law and behavioral sciences, Elyn R. Saks has written widely on the intersection of law and psychology, including books on the culpability of those suffering from multiple personality disorders (MPD) and the issue of forced treatment for the mentally ill, as well as a study of the differing viewpoints of psychoanalysts on the goal of treatment.

In Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law, coauthored with Stephen H. Behnke, Saks describes the legal, moral, and philosophical implications surrounding "alters," different personalities that emerge within a person suffering from multiple personality disorder (MPD). The author unveils an "opportunity to consider in a new light the relationship between autonomy, criminal responsibility, and imprisonment," according to Sherry F. Colb in the Georgetown Law Journal. Saks explores three different theories regarding these personas: that alters are each distinct persons; that alters are "personlike centers of consciousness"; and that alters are parts of one, nonintegrated person. Each of these hypotheses raises a number of interesting conundrums in psychology, including the possibility that we might all have a certain amount of MPD whenever we act "out of character." Such conundrums raise a number of questions about who is really responsible for the actions of a particular persona, and to this end Saks draws a distinction between guilt and dangerousness, asking whether MPD sufferers with violent personas fall into the "dangerous" category or not. These questions become critical when diagnoses of MPD enter the courtroom. As Robert M. Freeman concluded in Corrections Today, readers interested in this subject matter should be "impressed by the well-reasoned, comprehensive discussion of the legal and philosophical arguments" surrounding the incarceration or execution of offenders suffering from this mental illness.

Saks turns to a purely psychological issue in Interpreting Interpretation: The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis. Hermeneutic psychoanalysis can be summarized as "the theory that what analytic interpretation aims to do is … to tell a story about [the patient's behavior] which will seem to the patient to make sense," explained David M. Black in the International Journal of Psychotherapy. Naturally, many psychoanalysts take issue with the idea that they and their patients are not seeking to uncover reality, but rather a more useful illusion. Within the hermeneutic school there are those who question whether there is, in fact, any real "truth" to uncover, while others concentrate on the difficulties in true communication between patient and analyst. For Black, Saks's book is valuable because of its "very careful and thoughtful presentation of the issues."

Saks returns to the intersection of law and psychiatry in Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill. According to Nancy Dubler in the New England Journal of Medicine, Saks is a "wise, literate, and sympathetic narrator," and her book reflects the difficulties of combining humane treatment with individual autonomy in the case of some patients with severe mental illness. Specifically, she confronts the question of when it is right to force medical treatment on an individual who might not be lucid enough to either give or withhold consent. There is, of course, disagreement on this subject, and there is no clear or standard answer, so many jurisdictions base their answer on perceived dangerousness. Instead, Saks proposes a one-time option for involuntary treatment if a person suffers a psychotic break, regardless of whether the person becomes dangerous, but would allow the patient more latitude in refusing treatment as they gain control of themselves. She also argues for "psychiatric advance directives," which would allow patients to specify acceptable treatments in the event of future psychotic episodes. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare contributor Kia J. Bentley commended Refusing Care as a "provocative demonstration of the centrality of choice in mental health service delivery."

In 2007, Saks published The Centre Cannot Hold: A Memoir of My Schizophrenia, which presents a very different and much more personal account of mental illness than the author's previous works. In the book, Saks documents her lifelong struggle with symptoms of schizophrenia, beginning when she was just eight years old and feared she would be attacked. But it wasn't until graduate school that her symptoms grew so severe that she was hospitalized for them. In spite of all this, Saks graduated from Oxford, then law school at Yale, all the while struggling to handle her illness and still maintain a normal life and pursue her ambitions. The author explains ways she has learned to cope with her illness, including regularly working out and finding competent psychiatric care. Critics lauded The Centre Cannot Hold overall, finding Saks's story of personal struggle and triumph to be heartening and enlightening. The memoir is "detailed, honest, and extremely readable," wrote Antoinette Brinkman in a review for the Library Journal. Others enjoyed the author's vivid storytelling and raw honesty. Saks's "descriptions … are riveting," noted Entertainment Weekly contributor Tina Jordan.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Directory of American Scholars, 10th edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2002.

Saks, Elyn R., The Centre Cannot Hold: A Memoir of My Schizophrenia, Virago (London, England), 2007.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2007, Vanessa Bush, review of The Centre Cannot Hold, p. 7.

Chronicle of Higher Education, January 3, 2003, David Glenn, "Liberty, Sanity, Equality: Scholars Debate How to Define and Defend the Rights of the Mentally Ill," p. 12.

Corrections Today, August, 1997, Robert M. Freeman, review of Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law, p. 148.

Entertainment Weekly, August 17, 2007, Tina Jordan, review of The Centre Cannot Hold, p. 77.

Georgetown Law Journal, January, 1998, Sherry F. Colb, "The Three Faces of Evil," p. 677.

International Journal of Psychotherapy, July, 2000, David M. Black, review of Interpreting Interpretation: The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis, p. 180.

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, June, 2004, Kia J. Bentley, review of Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill, p. 203.

Journal of the American Medical Association, August 6, 2003, Daniel Luchins, review of Refusing Care, p. 674.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2007, review of The Centre Cannot Hold.

Library Journal, March 1, 1997, Patrick Petit, review of Jekyll on Trial, p. 88; June 1, 2007, Antoinette Brinkman, review of The Centre Cannot Hold, p. 136.

New England Journal of Medicine, October 2, 2003, Nancy Dubler, review of Refusing Care, p. 1392.

Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2007, review of The Centre Cannot Hold, p. 39.

ONLINE

University of Southern California Law School,http://lawweb.usc.edu/ (January 7, 2008), biographical information on Elyn R. Saks.