Mental Health

Written by Ryan Landvater ’19 and Julia McGinty ’19
The “Ulysses Clause,” the more colloquial term used for psychiatric advanced directives, is a surprisingly accurate description of the legislative document – just not in the way it was intended. Overtly, the allusion describes what the clause does and why it should be used, by referencing a story from the classic Greek text, the Odyssey. That said, there are subtler and more insidious implications drawn from an analogy between a Greek king, marooned at sea for a decade and leaving his family and life in a state of limbo, and our patients suffering from mental illness.