AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

1789 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Peter D. Kramer’s 1993 Listening to Prozac: The Landmark Book About Antidepressants and the Remaking of the Self (Penguin Books) was influential in its examination of the relationship between medication and identity. At the time, Prozac and similar antidepressants were better tolerated than their predecessors. But Prozac not only induced changes in mood; it affected people’s personality and sense of self. Listening to Prozac quickly became a cultural phenomenon.

Three decades later, what has transpired in treatment for depression, drug development, and the ethics of prescribing? How have ideas and attitudes about psychiatry, drug companies, and medication changed? Could Listening to Prozac be written today? AEI’s Sally Satel, Dr. Kramer, and a panel of experts will reflect on these questions and others from the perspectives of patients, the public, and health professionals.

With:

Daphne Merkin, Author, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression
Scott Stossel, Editor, Atlantic

https://www.aei.org/events/30-years-of-listening-to-prozac-depression-psychiatry-and-culture/

Dropping tomorrow, a discussion of Death of the Great Man, as a podcast in James Fallow’s Substack: Breaking the News