Listening to Prozac Kramer

Today Prozac is to antidepressants what Kleenex is to tissues. No book did more to awaken the public to a new generation of antidepressant medications than Peter Kramer s 1993 best-seller Listening to Prozac. Kramer previewed a world in which what is constant in the self and what is mutable, what is necessary and what is contingent, would need. .. to be revised. All this was summed up in what Kramer famously termed cosmetic psychopharmacology. He imagined a future of psychotropic medications so refined that we could choose whichever personality traits we wanted. Of course, it would be hard to distinguish honest free choice from the pressures to become the types of people favored by particular cultures. The book, in short, raises questions about self and social control ... 

Kramer PD (1994). Listening to Prozac. Fourth Estate, London. 

For revealing stories of people dealing with depression, see A. Solomon, The Noonday Demon An Atlas of Depression K. R. Jamison, Unquiet Mind A Memoir of Moods and Madness-, K. R. Jamison, Night Falls Fast Understanding Suicide-, R D. Kramer, Listening to Prozac-, W. Styron, Darkness Visible A Memoir of Madness. 

I remember pondering questions of self the first time I read Peter Kramer s book Listening to Prozac. Some of the stories Kramer tells are both miraculous and disturbing. For instance, he describes a woman, once so incapacitated by social anxiety that she rarely left home, who became a social butterfly after boosting her serotonin level via... 

In the last chapter you heard Mike describe the tortures of going up and down on different medications, each of which had distinctive side effects. A few years ago Peter Kramer, the author of Listening to Prozac wrote a book about human relationships entitled Should You Leave The book explores perennially significant questions about intimacy and autonomy— How do we choose our partners How well do we know them How do mood states affect our assessment of them and theirs of us When should we work to improve a relationship, and when should we walk away In essence, Kramer could have raised these same questions in his book on Prozac. In the following instances, however, experiments were abject failures and the only real option was to walk away ... 

P. Kramer, Listening to Prozac (New York Penguin Books, 1993)) PP- 21, 249. See also Kramer s latest book, entitled Against Depression (New York Viking, 2005), in which he details the destructive effects of depression on the brain. 

Similar issues arise in the widespread use of drugs such as Prozac. The psychiatrist Peter Kramer in his 1993 book Listening to Prozac describes cases in which patients claim that taking Prozac brings out their true self. The question becomes whether Prozac is in some cases changing a person s personality instead of fixing any perceived and possibly nonexistent disorder. Such cases have led to concerns about excessive use of these drugs, as well as the development of other medications that do not alleviate symptoms of a disease but instead make the consumer artificially happy or contented. 

Kramer, Peter D. Listening to Prozac. New York Penguin, 1993. Kramer, a psychiatrist, describes the profound effects of the popular antidepressant Prozac in his patients. 

The psychiatrist Peter Kramer publishes Listening to Prozac, a book about the first SSRI antidepressant that contributes to the popularity of the drug and other SSRIs. 

Peter Kramer, psychiatrist, faculty member at Brown University, and author of the best-selling book Listening to Prozac. The book helped publicize the effectiveness of the SSRI depression medication Prozac, suggesting that it helped change people s personalities as well as deal with their depression. It also contributed to the widespread use (or overuse according to critics) of Prozac and newer SSRI antidepressants. 

Kramer, Peter. Listening to Prozac. New York Viking, 1993. This influential book argued that Prozac, the first popular SSRI to treat depression, did more than deal with emotional problems—it also changed the personalities of many who took the drug. This led Kramer to speculate in his book about the nature of personality and self, but most took from the book that SSRIs could have amazing results and might benefit those without serious depression. The book both created controversy and contributed to the success of Prozac and other SSRIs. 

Kramer, Peter D. Listening to Prozac. New York Penguin Books, 1993. 

Just because a trait is long-standing, it is not appropriate to automatically assume that it is truly characterological. Figure 4-A can serve as a reminder to consider the possibility that certain characteristics may be due to chronic biochemical dysfunction. (See interesting discussions of this topic in Peter Kramer s best-selling book. Listening to Prozac 1993.)... 

P. Kramer, Listening to Prozac, Viking Press, New York, 1993. 

Antidepressants became a media obsession in the early 1990s largely following the publication of Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel s memoir of adolescent depression and its unexpected cure by a new kind of antidepressant called fluoxetine, better known as Prozac. Listening to Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Kramer s best-selling book, continued the drug s run of publicity with its descriptions... 

But is this rise in college antidepressant prescriptions really so alarming Surveys have shown that college students are under more stress than ever before. Peter Kramer, the author of Listening to Prozac, feels less wary about giving antidepressants to college students than he once was, stating... 

Kramer, P.D. 1993. Listening to Prozac A Psychiatrist Explores Anti-Depressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self New York Viking Penguin. 

In his book Listening to Prozac, Peter Kramer describes the spectacular rise and fall in the number of persons receiving the drug Prozac enjoyed the career of a true celebrity—renown, followed by rumors, then notoriety, scandal, and lawsuits, and finally a quiet rehabilitation. ... 

Kramer, Peter, R. Listening to Prozac The Landmark Book about Antidepressants and the Remaking of the Self. New York Penguin, 1997. Explores early views of the clinical effectiveness of Prozac and other medications in its class, which have become among the most prescribed medications in the United States and the world. The author, a psychiatrist, argues that such drugs not only are effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety but also can transform people s personalities, making them more confident and less shy. 

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