Read The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness Online
Authors: Elyn R. Saks
Tags: #Teaching Methods & Materials, #Biography, #General, #Psychopathology, #Health & Fitness, #Personal Memoirs, #Women, #Diseases, #Psychology, #Biography & Autobiography, #Schizophrenics, #Education, #California, #Social Scientists & Psychologists, #Mental Illness, #College teachers, #Schizophrenia, #Educators
If you are a person with mental illness, the challenge is to find the
life that's right for you. But in truth, isn't that the challenge for all of
us, mentally ill or not? My good fortune is not that I've recovered from
mental illness. I have not, nor will I ever. My good fortune lies in
having found my life.
acknowledgments
LIKE MY LIFE, this book is a collaborative effort, the result of the
contributions of my many friends and colleagues.
In terms of the actual writing of the book, two people have played
central roles. Through her writing, Larkin Warren helped bring the
book to life, in a way that wall allow me to "speak" to more people in
these pages. Stephen Behnke, a gifted writer and my closest friend,
knows me and my psychotic states—"spells," as Steve sometimes calls
them when teasing me—better than anyone. Steve suggested many of
the metaphors in the book to help convey the experience of my illness.
I wish to thank the publishing people who made this book happen:
my agent, Jennifer Joel, and my editor, Leslie Wells. Each is brilliant
at her job. It is their efforts that made
The Center Cannot Hold: My
Journey Through Madness
possible.
I would also like to thank my publisher, Robert Miller, for coming
up with a great title.
Other writers played a part in creating this book: Tristine Rainer,
my initial "memoir" teacher; Samantha Dunn, teacher of two memoir
writing classes; and Gladys Topkis, an editor friend who read and
made comments on the manuscript. Many others have read and made
suggestions on the manuscript. I thank especially Scott Altman,
Judith Armstrong, Gregg Bloche, Catherine Broger, Dinah Cannell,
Kenny Collins, Gerald Davison, Susan Estrich, Esther Fine, Susan
Garet, Michael Gitlin, Janet Hall, James High, Lissy Jarvik, Dilip
Jeste, Shannon Kelly, Stephanie Losi, Edward McCaffery, Alexander
Meiklejohn, Thomas Morawetz, Stephen Morse, Michael Shapiro,
David Shore, Larry Simon, Janet Smith, Matthew Spitzer, Philip
Stimac, Nomi Stolzenberg, Randy Sturman, Carmelo Valone, Marlene
Wagner, and June Wolf.
I would also like to thank those at USC who have helped me
administratively, so I could devote myself to writing: my assistant,
Keith Stevenson, and reference librarians Brian Raphael and Jessica
Wimer.
Over the course of my university studies, certain people opened
my mind. In retrospect, it was they who started me on the journey of
using my mind to heal my mind. John Lachs, my philosophy professor
at Vanderbilt, awakened me to the joys of thinking and learning.
Joseph Goldstein and Jay Katz of Yale Law School underscored that
lesson in the context of my interest in mental health. Stephen Wizner
helped me put my ability to think in the sendee of helping
undersen'ed people, a lesson Steve has taught to generations of Yale
law students, not just through his words but in how Steve lives his life.
George Mahl gave me a course in Freud that was among the best
classes I have ever taken and helped spur my interest in
psychoanalytic training.
Friends are a group of people who make life worth living, and I
have been blessed with many. Among my closest are: Russ Abbott,
Scott Altman, Judith Armstrong, Meiram Bendat, Gregg Bloche,
Catherine Broger, Dinah Cannell, Joel Chesler, Maria Chvirko, Kenny
and Margie Collins, Paul Davis, Patrick Dennis, Esther Fine, Paul
Forbath, Ronald and Susan Garet, Elizabeth Garrett, Thomas Griffith,
Janet Hall, Norah Heenan, Carrie Hempel, Joshua and Tamar Hoffs,
LissyJandk, Ehud Kamar, Ken Kress, Martin LeVay, Andrei Marmor,
Edward McCaffery, Alexander Meiklejohn, Thomas Morawetz, Craig
Parrish, Allan Rabinowitz, Noel Ragsdale, Daria Roithmayr, Catherine
Sabatini, Sam Scheer, Jean Scott, Michael Shapiro, Larry Simon,
David Slawson, Janet Smith, Edward Sokolnicki, Matthew Spitzer,
Nomi Stolzenberg, Christopher and Ann Stone, Randy Sturman,
Jennifer Urban, Robert Von Bargen, Catharine Wells, Richard
Wittenborn, Stephen Wizner, John Young, and Mark and Martha
Youngblood.
More generally, I wish to thank all of my colleagues on the USC
Law faculty. You know who you are, and I deeply appreciate your
friendship and support.
I have also developed good friends at the Wellness Community, a
group for cancer survivors. Our group leader, Carla, has helped me
and many others in our struggles, and I have forged close bonds with
many in the group, including Alex, Ann, Bracha, Carl, Christina,
Hiam, Janet, Julia, Margie, Mira, Sarah, Tracey, and Trudy. No one
understands cancer better than other cancer patients, and my
group-mates have often been inspirational to me.
My most important mentors at the New Center for Psychoanalysis
have been Gerald Aronson, Helen Desmond, Maimon Leavitt, and
Heiman Van Dam. They have helped me appreciate what
psychoanalytic thinking tells us about the complexities in every
human interaction.
My psychiatrists and therapists saved my life. I am enormously
grateful to the psychiatrists who focused on the biological aspects of
my illness, including Michael Gitlin and Stephen Marder. They have
helped me manage in the face of horrible symptoms and have brought
me to a place where I can most benefit from psychoanalysis. I do not
name my four analysts (I use pseudonyms in the text), because doing
so could complicate their relationships with past and current patients.
I owe my success and well-being—a debt I can never truly repay—to
the work in psychoanalysis we have done together.
I want to say a final word about those dearest to me. My parents
and brothers gave me the love and support that allowed my life to
proceed. I have kept things from them, for complicated reasons that
have served all of our needs, but I couldn't love them more. Steve has
been my colleague, my confidant, and my closest friend, the true
witness of my struggles. Steve understands me as well as anyone and
has given me the strength to go on many times. Will—well, what can I
say about Will? He is my true love—he gives my life a meaning that I
never thought possible. I go to bed every night and wake up every
morning thinking how lucky I am to have found him.
From all of these people, and others too numerous to mention, I
have gotten what I need to lead a life worth living. I hope that by
writing this book I help others to take some of what they need to make
their own lives a little better, too.
About the Author
Elyn R. Saks
is a professor at the University of Southern California
Law School and the University of California, and Research Clinical
Associate at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She
graduated from Oxford as a Marshall Scholar and received her J.D.
from Yale Law School. She has published three books and more than
two-dozen articles, and serves on the board of several mental health
foundations. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Will Vinet.
Copyright
THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD. Copyright © 2007 by Elyn R.Saks. All
rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted
the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of
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permission of Hyperion e-books.
Mobipocket Reader September 2007 ISBN 978-1-4013-8931-4
10 987654321
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