Listening to Prozac: The Landmark Book About Antidepressants and the Remaking of the Self, Revised Edition
Psychiatrist Peter Kramer's bookListening to Prozaccreated a  sensation when it was released in 1993, and it remains the most fascinating look  at the new generation of antidepressants. Kramer found that the changes in brain  chemistry brought about by Prozac had a wide variety of effects, often giving  users greater feelings of self-worth and confidence, less sensitivity to social  rejection, and even a greater willingness to take risks. He cites cases of  mildly depressed patients who took the drug and not only felt better but  underwent remarkable personality transformations--which he (along with many of  the book's readers) found disconcerting, leading him to question whether the  medicated or unmedicated version was the person's "real" self. Kramer  has been criticized for seeming to advocate Prozac over psychotherapy or as a  way of achieving personality changes not directly related to the disease of  depression, such as improving one's social confidence or job performance. In  fact, he makes no such recommendations; he was simply the first popular writer  to suggest that these changes might occur. (He answers those critics in the  afterword to this 1997 edition.) For anyone considering taking antidepressants  or wanting a better understanding of the effects these drugs are having on our  society,Listening to Prozacis a very important book.