This was Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Unquiet Mind from last weekend. In this TED Talk she speaks about her experience with schizophrenia and recovery. She is pro-psychopharmacology, which may be a trigger for some followers of this blog. In her case the medications seem to be helping her live an essentially normal life.
Moreover, she is a mental health law scholar and writer, she speaks for the rights of mentally ill people - she works to protect the rights and dignity of the mentally ill.
Her autobiography is The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (2007).
What's It Like To Have A Psychotic Episode?
by NPR/TED STAFF
February 06, 2013
Listen to the Story
TED Radio Hour
13 min 22 sec
Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Unquiet Mind.
About Elyn Saks' TED Talk
"Is it OK if I totally trash your office?" It's a question Elyn Saks once asked her doctor, and it wasn't a joke. A legal scholar, Saks came forward in 2007 with her own story of schizophrenia, controlled by drugs and therapy but ever-present. In this powerful talk, she asks us to see people with mental illness clearly, honestly and compassionately.
“I used to say, 'I don't want to use a crutch.' I now say, 'If my foot were broken, I'd use a crutch — aren't my neurotransmitters entitled to as gentle treatment as a broken foot?' - Elyn Saks
About Elyn Saks
Saks asks bold questions about how society treats people with mental illness. As a mental health law scholar and writer, she speaks for the rights of mentally ill people. It's a gray area: Too often, society's first impulse is to make decisions on their behalf. But it's a slippery slope from in loco parentis to a denial of basic human rights. Saks has brilliantly argued for more autonomy — and in many cases, for a restoration of basic human dignity.
In 2007, deep into her career, she dropped a bombshell — her autobiography, The Center Cannot Hold. In it, she reveals the depth of her own schizophrenia, now controlled by drugs and therapy. Clear-eyed and honest about her own condition, the book lent her new ammunition in the quest to protect the rights and dignity of the mentally ill.
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