Description
Elyn R. Saks is an esteemed professor, lawyer, and psychiatrist and is the Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Law School, yet she has suffered from schizophrenia for most of her life and continues to have major episodes of the illness.
The Center Cannot Hold recounts Saks's life, from the first time she heard voices as a young teenager, to attempted suicides in college, through learning to live on her own as an adult in an often terrifying world. Saks discusses frankly the paranoia and the difficulty of distinguishing imaginary fears from real ones, the voices in her head telling her to kill herself and to harm others, and the obstacles she overcame to become a highly respected professional.
A much-praised memoir of living and surviving mental illness. This beautifully written memoir is destined to become a classic in its genre.
Endorsements
"a stereotype-shattering look at a tenacious woman whose brain is her best friend and her worst enemy" — Time