Listening to Prozac: 2a Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self

I much enjoyed reading this book. I found that he raises all the right question. The author is a clinitian who, after noticing some remarkable transformation in patient taking the medication, investigates the clinical, ethical and philosophical issues surrounding Prozac (or similar medication). For instance, how does new medication influence clinical practice? If medication can trigger deep changes in patients' personality, then what is the "self" and how are we to distinguish the "essential self" from mood and transient characteristic. What is personality, temperament or character. In a broader sense, the author revisit the nature-nurture debate. If Prozac influence a cluster or personal traits in patient, this would indicate that a number of these traits are biologically based. The author also discusses moral issues surrounding the administration of drugs such as Prozac to generally healthy patient. How moral is it to try to use drug to give patients characters' trait that are valued by society.While the author does use Prozac in his practive and does hide the fact that he finds its use benefitial in many cases, the book is not an apology of Prozac but rather a discussion of deeper issues surrounding the medication.My only criticism of the book is that I would have like to see the author spend more time in unsuccessful use of Prozac. I have a mood disorder and I have been on most types of anti-depressant known to mankind and I have met a number of patient using Prozac or similar medication. My own experience of SSRIs medication is far from being all positive. Unlike many patient he describes who find that they are "better than well" and "really themselves" on Prozac, I find myself being transformed into somebody I am not while on medication. Medication works in so far as it makes me less depressed. Everybody likes me better on medication but I don't "feel myself". At any rate, my personal experience with AD medication made me think about such issues (Who am I? What part of me is just a reaction to a mood I am in and what part of me is essentially me? Are these medication transforming me into somebody else? Who am I taking these medication for? Is it for me or to make me a better partner, worker and consumer? I am less creative on meds, is neurosis essential to creativity, etc.). This book gave me insight and different perspective into these topics.

As someone who's been on Paxil for over a year, I've had many a conversation (with friends and with my therapist) about what it is, precisely, that Paxil (and it's buddies in the Prozac family) does. And should it be doing it? At what point is depression an "illness" that warrants medicated treatment and when is it simply a "normal" amount of bad feelings? Is Paxil a crutch? And if it is, does that mean that it shouldn't be used? This book addresses these questions intelligently and honestly. One of the things I admire about the book is that it doesn't pretend to have answers. It suggests possibilities, yes, and the author will frequently offer his own opinions, but he's very upfront about his own discomfort with the "Miracle Cures" that Prozac, Paxil, etc. have brought about, and the questions these cures raise for the usefulness of therapy. If you know anyone who's on any of these drugs or if you yourself are on them, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Whatever your own opinion may be, I think you'll find this book offers a lot to think about.

I had a desire to go back and reread this work on the tenth anniversary of its publication. I was curious to see how Dr. Peter Kramer's magnificent essay of the mysteries of mood and matter had stood the test of time. I was also interested to see how far the psychiatric-pharmaceutical complex had come in the past decade in dealing with the scourge of depression and other mental disorders. But before I get too far ahead of myself, exactly what was it about this book that made it such a provocative success in 1993? Two factors come to mind almost immediately. The first is the remarkable story-telling and philosophical style of the author. Yes, the crux of this work was the ethical dilemma of physicians who for the first time possessed the legal and medicinal power to alter personality cosmetically. But we forget over the years that this book was much more than a pharmaceutical morality play. It was a fascinating look at the pioneers of the biotechnology era, a glimpse into the hit and miss processes whereby paradigms and hypotheses were transformed into molecular formulas. The author made lucid for the general public just how mysterious the matrix between the material and the metaphysical truly is. That the new psychotropic drugs could morph a wallflower into a grand dame was becoming evident, so to speak, but the reasons for the change remained well educated guesses, and nothing more, in 1993. Such a tale was both tantalizing and troubling, and no one before Kramer had quite animated psychiatry while circumscribing it in such an elegant way.The second attraction of this book was the drug itself, Fluoxetine, marketed under the brand name Prozac. Prozac was not the only member of new wave antidepressants, the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRI's, available in 1993. [Zoloft was on the market by then.] But Prozac intrigued the public for different reasons than it enthralled Dr. Kramer. Prozac had a public relations problem: allegedly it promoted suicide and other evils, charges easily discredited with time but not until the medication had run the Larry King/60 Minute gamut of journalistic fury. Kramer did for Prozac what the Crocodile Hunter would later do for venomous reptiles, remind us that though potent the SSRI's can be handled safely by trained professionals.It has been ten years since this work was published, and seventeen years since the appearance of Prozac. Have we grown in wisdom regarding the relation of mood and chemicals in the human nervous system, and have we seen a stampede of new clients looking for psychological facelifts from new generation psychotropics? To respond to the first question, pharmaceutical inquiry over the past decade has continued to focus upon the neurotransmitter model of cellular communication in the brain--the cute Zoloft TV cartoon of little bullets or messengers passing back and forth between mother ships. There is now question as to whether Serotonin is the only bullet in the holster, with resea

This author is truly eloquent. Although he covers subjects ranging from the experiences of his own clients to more scientific discussions of how biology plays into the experience of depression, it never once lost my attention. After reading this book, I felt like I'd gotten a little "self-help" as well as a nice mini-course in the psychology and biology of the human being. Read this if you love someone who is depressed and is trying "new" antidepressants, not just because it will give you a good grasp of the workings of the drugs themselves, but also because it illuminates beautifully the day to day experiences of dealing with depression.

Listening to Prozac bridges the gap between the medical profession and layperson, presenting cogent information about the effect of SRIs and the ever-broadening spectrum of mood and psychological disorders they can effectively treat. Kramer doesn't skirt the ethical issues, nor does he promote the use of of SRIs. He does recognize that thousands of doctors and millions of patients feel these drugs represent a true breakthrough in treating depression and mood disorders in many types of people. At the same time, he addresses the question of what we most of us call "character"--something that many believe to be fixed in an individual--and how it can undergo "change" during treatment with SRIs. This becomes an ethical and spiritual question (in addition to being a medical question). It is a question that was (is) fascinating to me.