In Issue 13 of Taking Sides, the controversial question Have Antidepressant Drugs Proven to be Effective is analyzed. Psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer argues in this issue that antidepressant drugs "can transform depressed patients into happy people with almost no side effects" (p.212). On the contrary, professors of psychology Seymour Fisher and Roger P. Greenburg "claim that the studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of antidepressants are seriously flawed" (p.212). Kramer's agreement with the statement above is due mostly to the testing he did with his patient Tess and antidepressant drugs. However Fisher and Greenberg disagree with the statement mainly because of the bias drug studies that are done. Psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer experienced with the antidepressant drug Prozac with one of his patients Tess. In doing this, Kramer learned many things about Prozac and it's effects on people. The experience also leads him to ask many other questions about the drug. Tess was a patient who came from an abusive childhood and therefore as adult suffered from depression, which made Kramer feel she was a candidate for the antidepressant drug Prozac. In Tess taking the drug Kramer found out very quickly what remarkable changes it had on her. Kramer learned that the drug had a "quickly alteration in ordinary intractable problem of personality and social functioning" (p.218). Kramer also learned that Prozac enabled a person to understand what was important to them and who they were and wanted to be. Although Kramer saw the effects Prozac had on Tess, Tess also taught him to look at the border picture. Tess made Kramer think what if this "redefinition of self led to a culture in which this biologically driven sort of self understanding becomes widespread" (p.222). Kramer found it unbelievable what the drug Prozac could do to a patient, something that psychiatrists have always hoped to accomplish. The main thing though that Tess ta...
