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The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

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Author: Elyn R. Saks
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$24.95~~
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Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2

ISBN: 140130138X
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8980092
EAN: 9781401301385
ASIN: 140130138X

Publication Date: August 14, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: May contain remainder marks. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling books online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: B20081202131830O

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Elyn Saks is a success by any measure: shes an endowed professor at the prestigious University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She has managed to achieve this in spite of being diagnosed as schizophrenic and given a "grave" prognosis -- and suffering the effects of her illness throughout her life. PSaks was only eight, and living an otherwise idyllic childhood in sunny 1960s Miami, when her first symptoms appeared in the form of obsessions and night terrors. But it was not until she reached Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar that her first full-blown episode, complete with voices in her head and terrifying suicidal fantasies, forced her into a psychiatric hospital. PSaks would later attend Yale Law School where one night, during her first term, she had a breakdown that left her singing on the roof of the law school library at midnight. She was taken to the emergency room, force-fed antipsychotic medication, and tied hand-and-foot to the cold metal of a hospital bed. She spent the next five months in a psychiatric ward. PSo began Sakss long war with her own internal demons and the equally powerful forces of stigma. Today she is a chaired professor of law who researches and writes about the rights of the mentally ill. She is married to a wonderful man. PIn iThe Center Cannot Hold/i, Elyn Saks discusses frankly and movingly the paranoia, the inability to tell imaginary fears from real ones, and the voices in her head insisting she do terrible things, as well as the many obstacles she overcame to become the woman she is today. It is destined to become a classic in the genre.

Customer Reviews: Read 63 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

The Center Cannot Hold;: My Journey Through Madness November 23, 2008
This is an amazing account of an intelligent woman who will not let one of the most devastating mental illnesses, schizophrenia, beat her. Her courage and honesty are amazing. What she has achieved is beyond what "normal" people can imagine. She has done so much for those with mental illness and their families by her brave account, not just in showing how it can be managed but the failures of understanding in the medical community.

1 out of 5 stars

the center CAN hold November 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I struggled through this book. Surely Elyn would quit having so many psychotic symptoms; surely her meds would stop her symptoms; certainly she would realize that seeing an analyst was not helping with her symptoms. About two-thirds of the way through, I put it down thinking I would return it to its owner. br /br /However, a month later when I read some positive book reviews, I picked it back up hoping to read that she was free of psychotic symptoms. Instead, she continues to live inside her illness and hold onto her symptoms. br /br /As a person with a psychotic disorder, I know that recovery from these painful symptoms is possible. And it isn't just the meds that help one recover. The fundamental change in how I perceived and reacted to my world came from changing my thinking. br /br /Recovery is personal to everyone and obviously Elyn's idea of recovery is to continue living with her horrible symptoms and maintain the capacity to live a productive life. For me, I choose to find alternative ways to heal that include positive expectations for myself and the world around me.br /br /Elyn, the center CAN hold; the center DOES hold. It's all we have. br /br /If you are a family member of a person with a psychotic disorder and you want your loved one to suffer the rest of their life, then send them to a psychoanalyst. If you truly want happiness, freedom, independence and all the wonderful things life has to offer for your family member, then read Jill Bolte Taylor's, My Stroke of Insight. "Peace is just a thought away."br /

4 out of 5 stars

The Center Finally Does Hold October 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

'The Center Cannot Hold' presents an extremely admirable story. Professor Saks not only survives but thrives despite having schizophrenia. 'The Center Cannot Hold' shows Professor Saks to have an almost superhuman will power. Despite set back after set back Professor Saks returns to the ring time after time and finally triumphs. I think the real strength of this book is that it shows people with schizophrenia frequently to be decent caring people with a profound sense of justice. In terms of psychoanalysis, vis-a-vis Dr. Saks the proof is in the pudding, but psychoanalyis isn't really such a terrifc option for the vast majority of people with schizophrenia. Too, a similiar career path to the career path of Dr. Saks is largely out of the question for most people with schizophrenia. I think the main strenth of the book is to show than people with schizophrenia can be very very ill but at the same time fully human.

2 out of 5 stars

Something is missing here. October 6, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

What everyone who reviews this book and Ms. Saks herself untterly fails to realize is the devastating affect that her two years with "Operation ReEntry" had on her emotional and psychological development. Spawned from Synanon, a destructive and cruel cult that borrowed its methods from Korean war era mind-control and brainwashing techniques, it had her brainwashed into believing that she needed to have her spirit broken down and "rebuilt" although she never makes clear in what way it was beneficial for her to have spent two years being yelled at, made to scrub the stairs with a toothbrush, cut off from normal teenage activities, separated from her peers and turned over to a group of controlling drug addicts. Nor how her spirit was supposedly rebuilt nor to whose specifications. Lots of people have done far more drugs that Ms. Saks did and are fine. But when your parents abandon you to a cult that turns sanity, reality and common sense on its head then makes you believe you are crazy if you challange it, truth gets twisted into such a Gordian knot that sometimes insanity is the only escape. The lady seriously needs to reexamine that time in her life to understand the damage that was done by her post-traumatic reaction to her semi-incarceration. I'm not saying that she would not have schizophrenia anyway. But the massively profitable "behavioral" programs that Synanon spawned have been the cause of much post-traumatic stress and suicide, not to mention the kids who died in the "programs" as a result of abuse and neglect. Although I admire her and her accomplishments there is a big piece of the puzzle missing here. I hope Ms. Saks will do a rigorous re-examination of this time in her life and write about it.

5 out of 5 stars

Exceptional read!! October 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

One of the best of all the books I have read over the 15 years my son has been struggling to find his place in a society that refuses to care for his needs. It gave me tremendous insight into his struggles, and I am now reading Sak's third book, "Refusing Care." I have suggested "Center Cannot Hold" to the local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, so that families can borrow the book, read it, and gain their own "insight" into the details our loved ones are unable to tell us about. It certainly will help me to change the way I interact with my son, as I learn to let go of my fears for him and encourage him to make his own choices in dealing with such a devastating brain disorder.br /br /

Copyright 2007 White Hat Communications.
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