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The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness | 
 enlarge | Author: Elyn R. Saks
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.98
You Save: $9.97 (40%)
New (26) Used (12) Collectible (1) from $14.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 2378
Media: Hardcover
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: Brand new book. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling books online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080516225610T
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Product Description
Elyn Saks is a success by any measure: she's 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.Saks 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.Saks 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.So began Saks's 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.In The Center Cannot Hold, 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...
 Good personal account of schizophrenia May 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a great story of one womans struggle with coming to terms with mental illness and trying to maintain her life. It was both encouraging that she was able to finally overcome the illness to create a successful career and personal life, and at the same time discouraging that it took her over 15 years of struggle and denial to do so.
An emotionally moving and inspirational book May 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was so moved by Dr. Saks story, I couldn't put this book down. She is so brave to write her life's story and risk so much. Despite all her challenges, she is extremely accomplished as well as hopeful, courageous, honest, resilient, sensitive and generous. She exposes the mental health system in this country and compares it to England's. Every word in the book is meaningful. Dr Saks tells the story in a clear, precise, and simple to understand way. I found Elyn an inspirational role model. I have recommended this book to many relatives and friends. I even bought it as a gift for close relatives. I hope one day to meet her.
Simply an astonishing book April 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is impossible to overpraise this book, which is the only book I know of that takes you deep into the torments of the schizophrenic mind. What's astonishing about it is simply that Elyn Saks wrote it...and wrote it so engagingly and compelling. It staggers the imagination that she has achieved what she has given the colossal difficulties presented by her illness. There have been lots of books, as Saks points out near the end of hers, about mental illness, especially by mentally ill patients, but most of these have been by depressives and bipolar patients. These are mood disorders, but schizophrenia, as she so powerfully shows us, is a thought disorder which impairs the cognitive abilities of the brain and which substitutes a delusional world for the "reality" most of us experience. Damn I hope more and more people read this so that we might better understand the dark recesses of madness that threaten to engulf those afflicted with this terrible illness. This book is one for the ages. It belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in the capabilities of the human mind.
Tremendously insightful of schizophrenia April 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is absolutely excellent to get a good "inside" view of what it is like to experience the confusion and depth of schizophrenia. Added to its value is the fact that the author, who is shizophrenic, is an accomplished author in professional journals, and has earned a law degree at a prestigious university and an advanced degree in psychology as well! I admire her courage and willingness to speak out and share her personal experiences that so many have stigmatized. Kudos!
Wow! April 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I was a Medical Student, I met patients with variety of psychiatric disorders. This book has given me perspective that I didn't get then. I am really glad I read this book.
I wish the author had made the book even more personal with family pictures or pictures from her childhood.
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