Listening to Prozac : The dangers behind the sirens seductive call :: Neurological Neurology Brain Essays

Listening to Prozac The dangers behind the sirens seductive previseIf the gay brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would be as well simple to understand it (1). In his book Listening to Prozac, Dr. Peter Kramer thoroughly examines how Prozac has revolutionized the power of psychopharmacological medication and what it teaches us approximately the humans egotism. Prozac has demonstrated the ability to transform a psyches behavior, outlook, and conception of ego through a neurological pitch of biology, thus providing more depict that brain does indeed equal behavior. Perhaps more fascinating than the answers it provides about human neurobiology are the difficult questions, ironies, and problems its usage raises. The administration of Prozac challenges the feigning of healing through cognitive powers due to its purely biologic effectiveness. This triumph has widened the gap between the un-medicated and medicated human self. Which is the true reflection of a person? Do Prozacs transformations emulate an affected idealized social norm or release a healthy individual trapped in an unnatural state? How does this reflect or change our definitions of illness and wellness?Dr. Kramers discussions flexible joint upon the idea that the nervous system controls behavior. The case studies he provides show community who, after taking Prozac, have remarkable transformations of multiple facets of behavior including perceptions, motivation, emotions, aesthesis of choice, values, and personality (defined by given temperament as well as developed character). Prozacs ability to change a person so drastically on a biological level causes much apprehension because the change does non need to be processed cognitively or make up consciously. Dr. Kramer asserts that this change need non coincide with any self-knowledge because it is evidently not necessary(32). His comment points to a desire among many that the conscious self (I-function) has a stronger influence on behavior than biology does because we intimately have-to doe with behavior with self-identity. Relying on a foreign substance to change biology (and self) without apprising and receiving sanction from the conscious-self first seems unnatural. The utter reliance on biology without utilizing our human gift of cognition seems to be a violation of how humanity has divide itself from our own inner animal. Dr. Kramer dismisses claims that Prozac compromises our vision of humanity through changing behavior in psychobiological terms by saying, biological models are not reductionistic but humanizing, in the sense that they restore scale and perspective and pass on into account the vast part of us that is not intellect (143).