Renowned Professor of Mental Health Law, Dr. Elyn Saks Inspires Hope & Awareness at Marymount

With this inspiration in tow, Evie started the first-ever Marymount Mental Health Awareness Club in the fall of 2014.  Now in its second year, the club continues to grow and has over thirty members, all working toward the goal of educating the Marymount community about different mental illnesses and issues.  In her own words, Evie told us:

“I started the Mental Health Awareness Club at Marymount because I want mental health issues to carry less stigma, and also want to help everyone on campus to better understand the immense suffering individuals with mental illness can experience. I hope that we can all learn to treat people who have a mental illness with more empathy and understanding.  Mental illness can be very much a mystery or a difficult topic to speak about, but it doesn’t have to be.”

 

A year after starting the club, and with the help of Head of School Jacqueline Landry and Director of Girls Leadership Robin Pickett, Evie was able to welcome one of her heroes, Dr. Saks, to Marymount.   As Evie introduced Dr. Saks to the Marymount community on Monday 11/2, she paid tribute to the amazing achievements and recognition that Dr. Saks has garnered over the years, including a MacArthur “genius” Grant which she is using to found the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy and Ethics.

As Dr. Saks took the stage to share some thoughts and excerpts from her book, “The Center Cannot Hold” and her 2012 TED Talk (click here to watch), she focused on her personal experience of living with chronic schizophrenia, and how she likely would have been another statistic if it were not for her family and friends (her best friend, a fellow lawyer and psychologist, Dr. Stephen Behnke, sat in the audience as she spoke). She also touched on the importance of vulnerability and acceptance of oneself through her personal struggle with mental illness, and also more broadly, how she thinks each of these values can help us all. Most importantly, however, Dr. Saks told the audience that she wanted an open dialogue and to share a Q+A session with our students, all with the hope of inspiring openness and lowering the stigma around these sensitive topics.

 

As she opened the floor for Q+A, a thoughtful question was posed by one of our newest students, freshman Oona Wood.  Oona asked Dr. Saks about mental illness in the broader context of society, asking how we can support individuals with these illnesses in getting help / treatment without imposing on their civil liberties. Dr. Saks commended Oona for asking one of the best (and most difficult) questions she and many other leading scholars in the world of mental health law face each day. This question, she said, is often what can lead us as a society to use force in treating these individuals, which can be incredibly debilitating and in fact, worsen the situation. Because of that, she is now designing a study through her institute with the help of both UCLA and USC, to explore the most effective ways to provide and establish treatment without using these more debilitating methods such as force and jail time. In fact, Dr. Saks stated, this is one of her very top priorities moving forward.

 

At the conclusion of her presentation, Dr. Saks asked the our community to take her main goal of inspiring awareness and hope in tow, and to continue the important conversation around mental health through Evie’s club and across campus. A testament to the impact that she had on our community was the large group of students who waited in line to speak with Dr. Saks after her presentation, as well as the questions that were raised throughout the remainder of the week.

 

As we continue to work as a community to better understand mental health, and with Evie’s Mental Health Awareness Club at the helm, we look forward to acting with hope, empathy and understanding, making mental health a less stigmatized topic as we move toward the future.