Listening to Prozac: A Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self

Imagine yourself transformed by a pill. Where once you were hesitant, shy, and self critical, now you are confident and self assured. Once driven by guilt and obligation, prone to doomed, self destructive relationships, now you find yourself relaxed and composed, able to joke and laugh at yourself.

Now you stop taking the pill, and you change again. Your self returns. But it's not the same as before. You don't feel like yourself, despite the fact that these habits and traits of character were yours for a lifetime before you took the drug. What would this experience tell you? Which is your “self” - the one on the drug, or the one off it? Is …