Peter D. Kramer, born on October 22, 1948, is an American psychiatrist, a Marshall Scholar at University College, London, and a faculty member of Brown Medical School specializing in the area of depression. Kramer received his medical degree from Harvard and is the best-selling author of numerous books. Kramer's most notable book is Listening to Prozac. The book discusses how the advance of the anti-depressant drug Prozac; changes the way we see personality. Kramer considers depression to be a serious illness with tangible physiological effects. Kramer has written for The New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book Review, U.S. News & World Report, and many other publications. He lives in Providence, …show more content…
Prozac a. The drug introduced in 1988, is an antidepressant drug that is commonly used to treat depression. The generic name for Prozac is Fluoxetine. b. Prozac was the main agent of change. It began to restore patient’s health, to a state of “better than before.” 1. Prozac gave social confidence, removed timid habits, and dissipated introvert social skills. B. Listening to Prozac a. The Prozac outburst led to a phenomenon where author and doctor, Peter D. Kramer, began to listen and understand how the drug operated. b. Kramer, spent much time with his patients and his view towards a person’s mechanisms changed. 1. He formed new beliefs on how self-esteem is maintained, how sensitivity functions in interpersonal relationships, and how social skills are employed. c. Kramer wrote monthly columns in a trade paper for psychiatrists, where he emphasized the effects of Prozac, and how it has significantly “cured” his patients. 1. Kramer’s cue for this effect was “cosmetic psychopharmacology” in which the medication restored a person’s health and beauty. d. Kramer’s intrigued and captivated mind influenced his journey on understanding human nature. Through his research and study, Kramer used his own patient’s stories and their responses to the drug, which shaped his conjectures and inferences on the drug,
Search Plan and Relevant Sources: I will need to continue to seek out of range perspective on antidepressants as I develop my own argument. I plan to conduct some field research by interviewing people that have used antidepressant drugs. My friend, who would prefer to keep her identity private, has suffered from depression and has used antidepressants to treat her mental illness has a agreed to an interview. I also plan to do some further research and see if a doctor who prescribes antidepressants if they would be willing to set up an
Madness: A History, a film by the Films Media Group, is the final installment of a five part series, Kill or Cure: A History of Medical Treatment. It presents a history of the medical science community and it’s relationship with those who suffer from mental illness. The program uses original manuscripts, photos, testimonials, and video footage from medical archives, detailing the historical progression of doctors and scientists’ understanding and treatment of mental illness. The film compares and contrasts the techniques utilized today, with the methods of the past. The film offers an often grim and disturbing recounting of the road we’ve taken from madness to illness.
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Cropper, Carol Marie. “A Cloud Over Antidepressants” Businessweek 3880 (2004): 112-113 Business Source Premeir. Web. 28 Jan. 2014
Psychiatry is one of the oldest medical methods; it is also the most exciting form of medicine. In 1812, Benjamin Rush, who was also a signer of the declaration of independence, published the first psychiatry text book in the United States (5). Recently, circa 2000s, an organization, American Psychiatric Press, is using its subsidiaries¬¬¬¬- the American Psychiatric Foundation, the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education, and many more- to position the organization for a greater role of advocacy. (5)
...ceutical productions which define the pathology itself. In support of the idea that depression expresses a reduced capacity to interact with the environment rather than an abnormality based around an unidentifiable measurement of “chemical balance,” I will argue that the way in which pharmaceutical drugs standardize chemical deviance and treat mental illness like a biological disease disregards the normative component of depressive illnesses which must be considered as a response in one way or another to the environment in which they are experienced by each patient. By thinking about antidepressants not as correctional of a biological pathology but as a form of adaptation, I hope to show how their use must be considered in relation to values which combine scientific, social and experiential components that cannot be explained by scientific means alone.
Wilens, Timothy E. Straight Talk about Psychiatric Medications for Kids New York: The Guilford Press, 1999.
Kaut, K. P., & Dickinson, J.A. (2007). The mental health practitioner and psychopharmacology. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 29(3), 204–225.
Psychiatry is a medical field that deals with the diagnoses, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. The FDA is constantly approving drugs for psychiatrists to use that are supposed to help with in their practice. For example, Michael Levin-Epstein, who wrote the article “A New Way to Deliver Psychiatric Meds: Drugs for ADHD and Major Depression Now Can Be Delivered with Skin Patches,” shows how pharmacotherapy is continually being advanced by new ideas and approaches. However, Psychiatric drugs are not always the answer. Prescriptions are not a good remedy when it comes to the overcoming of a mental illnesses, because there is not enough information regarding the effects of the drugs, pharmaceutical companies are driven by profits,
Molitior Nancy “The 411 on Clinical Psychologists: Here’s the Truth” Your mind your body. 20 Nov 2009. Web. 14 Feb 2014
At first it was the cure all people were looking for. Then it became the drug they were afraid to take. Somewhere between these two extremes lies the truth about the drug Flouxetine, better known as Prozac, the most widely prescribed drug on the globe. It is mainly prescribed to patients suffering from clinical depression. It was first brought to the market in 1988 by the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly co. Even though it was originally prescribed for depression, it has been prescribed for everything from eating disorders to insomnia. It was first considered the wonder drug of the new decade because of the way it helped depression patients when no other anti-depressant could and then also found to help many other personality disorders as well. But now it is frowned upon by many. Some of the side effects contributed to the growing opposition of Prozac include nausea, constipation, memory impairment, and excess sweating, just to name a few.
In his book Listening to Prozac, Dr. Peter Kramer thoroughly examines how Prozac has revolutionized the power of psychopharmacological medication and what it teaches us about the human self. Prozac has demonstrated the ability to transform a person's behavior, outlook, and conception of self through a neurological change of biology, thus providing more evidence that brain does indeed equal behavior. Perhaps more fascinating than the answers it provides about human neurobiology are the difficult questions, ironies, and problems its usage raises. The administration of Prozac challenges the model of healing through cognitive powers due to its purely biologic effectiveness. This success has widened the gap between the un-medicated and medicated human self. Which is the "true" reflection of a person? Do Prozac's transformations emulate an unnatural idealized social norm or release a healthy individual trapped in an unnatural state? How does this reflect or change our definitions of "illness" and "wellness"?
Schmied, L. A., Steinberg, H., & Sykes, E. A. B. (2006). Psychopharmacology's debt to experimental psychology. History of Psychology, 9, 144-157.
Mukherjee, Siddhartha. "Post-Prozac Nation: The Science and History of Treating Depression." New York Times. 19 April 2012: 3-4. Web. 6 April. 2014.