Elyn R. Saks
Elyn R. Saks is Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law; Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine; and Faculty at the New Center for Psychoanalysis. She has a BA, MLitt, JD, PhD, and Honorary LLD. She’s published four books and more than 40 articles and book chapters about law and mental health. Her most recent book, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Hyperion, 2007) describes her struggles with schizophrenia and her managing to craft a good life for herself in the face of a dire prognosis. It’s won numerous honors. She’s a 2009 recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship (the so-called “Genius Grant”). She used this to found the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics at the University of California. She lives with her husband, Will Vinet, in Los Angeles, California.
