Self-help literature can sometimes be hard on the reader: it's not usually very well written, relying on the need of the reader for information and help rather than style to seduce its audience. If you read this book expecting to be eased through an account of the SSRIs, then you'll be disappointed. But if you are interested in what a deeply thoughtful therapist can offer in the way of a philosophical, literary, and pharmacological exploration of the SSRI drugs, you'll love this book. Kramer's writing is compelling: he leads us through a history of the development of anti-depressant medication via a series of case studies that open up his central enquiry: what our we doing to our "selves" when we medicate?
Kramer's book is, on balance, very positive about the impact of newer anti-depressants on the lives of depressed people. He is, however, cautious about the implication of these medications in a larger social context: are we giving people drugs merely to make them more peppy, more likeable? Are there personality types that are so privileged in our culture that we are now prescribing to effect personality changes? What might it mean when a patient on medication feels more "like themselves" than they did before chemical intervention?
Kramer poses these questions through a gentle expository prose which nonetheless lays out their implications in all their complexity. His use of literary analogies -- in particular, the work of Walker Percy -- will strike a chord for those whose find fiction sometimes the best vehicle in which to explore questions of human social interraction. Listening to Prozac does, I'd suggest, offer help. It also provides much food for thought. Anyone whose life has been touched by SSRI medications will be intrigued by this book, and find something in it that speaks to them.
