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How Psychiatric Drugs Affect Personality

Psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer wrote "Listening to Prozac," an examination of the larger issues behind drugs that reshape temperament. Prozac is the most widely prescribed antidepressant today, with some four and a half million users since its introduction in 1987. Kramer raises serious questions about this "miracle mood enhancer": are we headed into an age of cosmetic pharmacology? If a pill is not used to alter an illness, but rather personality, what then is "the self?" And what are the social ramifications for women, in light of the Valium and Lithium use of the 1960s?

44:28

Other segments from the episode on June 2, 1993

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, June 2, 1993: Interview with Peter Kramer; Review of PM Dawn's album "The Bliss Album."

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