"Deeply felt... [Kramer's] book is a polemic against a society that accepts depression as a fact of life." —O, The Oprah Magazine A profound look at depression by the author of The New York Times Bestseller, Listening to Prozac In his landmark bestseller Listening to Prozac , Peter Kramer revolutionized the way we think about antidepressants and the culture in which they are so widely used. Now Kramer offers a frank and unflinching look at the condition those medications treat: depression. Definitively refuting our notions of "heroic melancholy," he walks readers through groundbreaking new research—studies that confirm depression's status as a devastating disease and suggest pathways toward resilience. Thought-provoking and enlightening, Against Depression provides a bold revision of our understanding of mood disorder and promises hope to the millions who suffer from it.

“A carefully argued and convincing case.” —Ann Levin, Associated Press Do antidepressants actually work, or are they just glorified dummy pills? How can we tell one way or the other? In Ordinarily Well , the celebrated psychiatrist and author Peter D. Kramer addresses the growing mistrust of antidepressants among the medical establishment and the broader public by taking the long view. He charts the history of the drugs’ development and the research that tests their worth, from the Swiss psychiatrist Roland Kuhn’s pioneering midcentury discovery of imipramine’s antidepressant properties to recent controversial studies suggesting that medications like Prozac and Paxil may be no better than placebos in alleviating symptoms. He unpacks the complex “inside baseball” of psychiatry—statistics—and reveals the fascinating ways that clinical studies and their results can be combined, manipulated, and skewed toward a desired conclusion. All the while, Kramer never loses sight of the patients themselves. He writes with deep empathy about his own clinical encounters over the decades as he weighed treatments, analyzed trial results, and considered the idiosyncrasies each case presented. As Kramer sees it, we must respect human complexity and the value of psychotherapy without denying the truth—that depression is a serious and destructive illness that demands the most effective treatment available.

Through fascinating case histories and revealing encounters with patients, Dr. Peter Kramer, author of the international bestseller Listening to Prozac , provides a compassionate, immensely eloquent view of how psychiatry really works. Dr. Kramer was recently asked to guest host The Infinite Mind , a weekly public radio show focusing on the art and science of the human mind and spirit, behavior, and mental health. Listen to the show now.

In any given year, one in four Americans suffers from a diagnosable mental illness--and yet there is still a significant stigma attached to being labeled as "mentally ill." We hear about worst-case scenarios, but in many--maybe even most--cases, there is much room for hope. These frank, often intimate stories reflect the writers' struggles to overcome--both as professionals and as individuals, as current therapists and as former patients--the challenges presented by depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, and other mental disorders. These dramatic narratives communicate clearly the rewards of helping patients move forward with their lives, often through a combination of medication, talk therapy, and common sense. Collectively, these true stories highlight the need for empathy and compassion between therapist and patient, and argue for a system that encourages human connection rather than diagnosis by checklist.