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books:

	• Listening to Prozac: The Landmark Book About Antidepressants and the Remaking of the Self, Revised Edition Peter D. Kramer Penguin (Non-Classics), 1997 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Check STAR-D

I have to confess that I bought this book when it first came out and it has sat on my shelves unread for a decade. Part of my neglect was that I had heard so much about it, and it seemed that the central message was that antidepressants are helpful for mood disturbances other than severe depression. This seemed a no-brainer to me and I couldn't figure why such a simple proposition merited three hundred pages.
To some extent I still think the same, but I was impressed by his excellent writing and sharp insights, not only into his patients, but into the working of psycho-scientific politics. He personally knew many of the scientists involved in the developments of the last forty years of the twentieth century.
At the beginning of those four decades it looked as if the Kraepelinians had had conclusively won their battle. Medication proved that there were separate mental illnesses. Lithium was good for mania, anti-depressants and ECT for depression, Thorazine or Haldol for schizophrenia, benzodiazepines for anxiety, and psycho stimulants for ADHD. You made the diagnosis correctly and if you had made the right diagnosis you prescribed the right pill. Things have become fuzzier, and Kramer was among the first to point this out.
There are no diagrams, illustrations or tables. He gives a remarkably clear explanation of the technology of developing a new drug that works on specific neuroreceptors. He does this without illustrations, which is a tour de force of a writer's skill. Maybe, however, pictures would have saved a few words.
He ignores statistics. Terms such as factor analysis, odds ratio, number needed to treat, and so forth do not appear. Even in 1993 we knew about such things. Many of the patients he describes might have been getting better or getting worse regardless of the pills. Post hoc is not always propter hoc. I would recommend googling STAR-D to get a more accurate picture of what can and cannot be helped by anti-depressant drugs.

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A Good Book

This is a great book to read if you want to know about Prozac. It isn't written with all the medical lingo to where you don't understand. It is written for the average person and easy to understand and comprehend. Loaded with tons of great information. Highly Recommended.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

A noted psychiatrist examines the current status of Prozac in America, including the latest research, as well as personal observations into how and why this drug has become so popular in the quest to cure personality problems. Reprint. Tour."

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