Listening to Prozac: A Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self is a book written by psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 Peter D. Kramer

Peter D. Kramer

Peter D. Kramer, M.D., is an American psychiatrist, former Marshall Scholar and faculty member of Brown Medical School specializing in the area of depression. He considers depression to be a serious illness with tangible physiological effects such as disorganizing the brain and disrupting the...

. Written in 1993, the book discusses how the advance of the anti-depressant drug Prozac might change the way we see personality, the relationship between neurology

Neurology

Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...

 and personality

Personality

Personality is the particular combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns of an individual.-Psychology:* Personality development, the concept that personality is affected by various sources* Personality disorder...

.

Kramer coined the term "Cosmetic pharmacology

Cosmetic pharmacology

Cosmetic psychopharmacology, a term coined in 1990 by the psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer and popularized in his 1993 book Listening to Prozac, refers to the use of drugs to move persons from a normal psychological state to another normal state that is more desired or better socially rewarded — e.g.,...

", and in this book he discusses the philosophical, ethical and social consequences of using psychopharmacology to change one's personality. He asks if it is ethically defensible to treat a healthy individual to, for instance, help him climb a career, or on the other hand, if it is ethically defensible to deny him that possibility.

Publishing Information

• Hardcover Edition: (June 1993)
  • Publisher: Viking Press
  • ISBN 0-670-84183-8

• Paperback Edition: (June 1994)
  • Publisher: Penguin USA
  • ISBN 0-14-015940-1