Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law

by Elyn R. Saks

The idea that multiple personalities can exist within the same body has long captured the Western imagination. From Three Faces of Eve to Sybil, from Pyscho to Raising Caine, from 60 Minutes to Oprah to One Life to Live, we are captivated by the fate of multiples who, divided against themselves, wreak havoc in the lives of others. Why do we find multiple personality disorder (MPD) so fascinating? Perhaps because each of us is aware of a dividedness within we often feel as if we are one person on the job, another with our families, another with our friends and lovers. We may fantasize that these inner discrepancies will someday break free, that within us lie other personalities--genius, lover, criminal--that will take us over and render us strangers to our very selves. What happens when such a transformation literally occurs, when an alter personality surfaces and commits some heinous deed? What do we do when a Billy Milligan is arrested for a series of rapes and robberies, of which the original personality, Billy, is utterly oblivious? What happens when a Juanita Maxwell, taken over by her alter personality, Wanda, becomes enraged and commits a murder which would horrify Juanita? Who really committed these deeds? Are alter personalities people? Are they centers of consciousness which are akin to people? Mere parts of a deeply divided person? Who should held accountable for the crimes? Which is more appropriate--punishment or treatment? In Jekyll on Trial, Elyn R. Saks carefully delineates how MPD forces us to re-examine our central concepts of personhood, responsibility, and punishment. Drawing on law, psychiatry, and philosophy, Saks explores the nature of alter personalities, and shows how different conceptualizations bear on criminal responsibility. A wide-ranging and deeply informed book, Jekyll on Trial is must reading for anyone interested in law, criminal justice, psychiatry, or human behavior.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Elyn R. Saks, training to be a psychoanalyst, specializes in mental health law, criminal law, and children and the law. Her recent research focused on ethical dimensions of psychiatric research and forced treatment of the mentally ill. She teaches Mental Health Law, Mental Health Law and the Criminal Justice System, and Advanced Family Law: The Rights and Interests of Children. She also teaches at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Law at the Keck School of Medicine at USC and is an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. In her capacity as associate dean, Dean Saks oversees research and grants at USC Law.

Dean Saks recently published The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Hyperion, 2007), a memoir about her struggles and successes with schizophrenia and acute psychosis. Other publications include Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill (University of Chicago Press, 2002), Interpreting Interpretation: The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis (Yale University Press, 1999), and Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law (with Stephen H. Behnke, New York University Press, 1997).

Before joining the USC Law faculty in 1989, Dean Saks was an attorney in Connecticut and instructor at the University of Bridgeport School of Law. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University before earning her master of letters from Oxford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she also edited the Yale Law Journal. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa; an affiliate member of the American Psychoanalytic Association; a board member of Mental Health Advocacy Services; and a member of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Foundation, Robert J. Stoller Foundation, and American Law Institute. Dean Saks won both the Associate’s Award for Creativity in Research and Scholarship and the Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award in 2004.

Reviews

[Eduardo Lira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinante

[Ktbird · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very technical read.

[Breanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great read! You can tell the author truly cares about this topic, and has given it a lot of thought, and I am quite impressed!

The information was presented in an order and way that made it easy to follow along with the author's line of thinking. She constantly would summarize and re-summarize her points, but not so much that it became repetitive or annoying. Also, as a philosophy geek, I really admire and appreciate how she truly explored every side to the arguments and theories she was talking about. I was also impressed by her putting forth her own solution and theories, rather than just making this a history textbook and discussion about MPD.

If you're not used to reading philosophical texts, I warn that it may be difficult to absorb his arguments without some re-reading, but I think if one slows down their normal reading speed a bit, that anyone can understand and appreciate this author's work!