2021 Pardes Prize Honors Three Women with Lived Mental Illness Experience

Elyn Saks, J.D. Ph.D., is one of the countless people who know how schizophrenia can instantly turn a life upside down. One day in 1977 she was a rising young star doing postgraduate studies at Oxford University under a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, the next she was wandering the streets of Oxford rambling and delirious.

Yet Saks notes she was fortunate to be connected with a supportive therapist shortly after her psychotic symptoms emerged—someone who was attentive, nonjudgmental, and encouraged Saks to continue with school and other activities while getting treatment. With that encouragement, she completed her master’s degree, went on to law school at Yale, and embarked on a prolific academic career.

During this 40-year journey, Saks also began to accept and eventually made friends with her illness. She has also willingly shared her experiences with mental illness, both through her biography The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness as well as numerous speaking engagements. One such presentation was at the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation’s International Mental Health Research Virtual Symposium last October, where Saks was one of the recipients of the 2021 Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health.

The annual Pardes Prize recognizes individuals and organizations that have made a profound and lasting impact by improving the lives of people with mental illness and by advancing the understanding of mental health. Saks shared the award with Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., the Dalio Professor of Mood Disorders at Johns Hopkins University, and Charlene Sunkel, founder and CEO of the Global Mental Health Peer Network.

“These extraordinary women are advocates for mental health and each lives with a mental illness,” Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) CEO and President Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., said in a statement welcoming attendees to the virtual 2021 International Mental Health Research Symposium. (Borenstein is also the editor in chief of Psychiatric News.)

Saks, the Orrin B. Evans Distinguished Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the USC Gould School of Law, was honored for her contributions as a therapist, author, and legal advocate for people with mental illness. Jamison was recognized for her research and writings about bipolar disorder, including the seminal textbook Manic-Depressive Illness: Recurrent Depression and Bipolar Disorders and An Unquiet Mind, her own painfully honest autobiography about living with bipolar disorder. Sunkel was recognized for her efforts to ensure that people with lived experience of mental illness have greater inclusion in research, policy, and health care decisions.

Jamison, Saks, and Sunkel, along with the winners of nine BBRF scientific awards (see box), each addressed attendees at the virtual symposium.

In her video presentation, Jamison said she was humbled by the award and was especially honored to receive the award alongside two remarkable colleagues fighting for the same purpose. Jamison cautioned that the journey to end the shame and stigma of mental illness is far from over.

Even today, “newspapers and television broadcasts make remarks about people with mental illness that would not be tolerated if said about any other minority or disadvantaged group,” she said. Additionally, many people living with mental illness continue to maintain low expectations of their ability to lead full and productive lives even with treatment, she continued. Jamison called on the countless other people who have managed to thrive despite their mental illness—a group she termed “the silent successful”—to lend their voice to the chorus that mental illness is not shameful.

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals need to step up as well, said Saks during her presentation. “People who struggle with mental health disorders are not just walking symptoms who can be cured by a pill; we are whole people who [exist] in a relational and social context.”

Sunkel understands the inadequacies of mental health care all too well. After she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1991 at the age of 18 in South Africa, she was told by doctors at the hospital that her life was basically over; she would never be able to work, live on her own, or otherwise be independent. It was a stigmatizing message that unfortunately is still heard today by people with schizophrenia around the world.

Yet Sunkel channeled her early experiences into a career advocating for positive change, which culminated with her establishing the Global Mental Health Peer Network, an organization driven entirely by people living with mental illness that seeks to empower other people with lived experience.

“The 2021 Pardes Prize recipients have applied their scientific knowledge, deep understanding of human behavior, and compassion for people to improve the lives of millions suffering from mental illness,” said award namesake Herbert Pardes, M.D., president of the BBRF Scientific Council and a past president of APA, in a media release. “We applaud their important work.”

In addition to these three awardees, BBRF recognized three distinguished scientists with honorary Pardes Prizes for their international humanitarian efforts. John M. Davis, M.D., the Gilman Professor of Psychiatry and Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Michael R. Phillips, M.D., M.P.H., a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, were honored for their mental health advocacy in China. Norman Sartorius, M.D., Ph.D., was honored for his work raising awareness of the global burden of mental illness and the need to address it during his tenure as the first director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Mental Health. ■

Recordings of BBRF’s 2021 International Mental Health Research Virtual Symposium are posted here.