Audiobook10 hours
Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants
Written by Peter D. Kramer
Narrated by L.J. Ganser
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Do antidepressants work, or are they glorified dummy pills? How can we tell? In Ordinarily Well, the celebrated psychiatrist and author Peter D. Kramer examines the growing controversy about the popular medications. A practicing doctor who trained as a psychotherapist and worked with pioneers in psychopharmacology, Kramer combines moving accounts of his patients' dilemmas with an eye-opening history of drug research to cast antidepressants in a new light. Kramer homes in on the moment of clinical decision making: Prescribe or not? What evidence should doctors bring to bear? Using the wide range of reference that readers have come to expect in his books, he traces and critiques the growth of skepticism toward antidepressants. He examines industry-sponsored research, highlighting its shortcomings. He unpacks the "inside baseball" of psychiatrystatisticsand shows how findings can be skewed toward desired conclusions. Kramer never loses sight of patients. He writes with empathy about his clinical encounters over decades as he weighed treatments, analyzed trial results, and observed medications' influence on his patients' symptoms, behavior, careers, families, and quality of life. He updates his prior writing about the nature of depression as a destructive illness and the effect of antidepressants on traits like low self-worth. Crucially, he shows how antidepressants act in practice: less often as miracle cures than as useful, and welcome, tools for helping troubled people achieve an underrated goalbecoming ordinarily well.
Author
Peter D. Kramer
Peter D. Kramer is a psychiatrist and faculty member of Brown Medical School specializing in the area of clinical depression
More audiobooks from Peter D. Kramer
Death of the Great Man Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Listening to Prozac Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Ordinarily Well
Related audiobooks
Losing Our Minds: The Challenge of Defining Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inflamed Mind: A Radical New Approach to Depression Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brain Lock, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5(Mis)Diagnosed: How Bias Distorts Our Perception of Mental Health Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shaken Brain: The Science, Care, and Treatment of Concussion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is Depression: A Comprehensive, Compassionate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Understand Depression Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Language of Pain: Fast Forward Your Recovery To Stop Hurting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mystery of Sleep: Why a Good Night's Rest Is Vital to a Better, Healthier Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Epilepsy: Live or Die Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWell: What We Need to Talk About When We Talk About Health Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Depression: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Seasons of Loneliness: A Lawyer's Case Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5DSM V: Audio Crash Course Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Altruistic Urge: Why We're Driven to Help Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burnout in Healthcare: A Guide to Addressing the Epidemic Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Psychology For You
The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed For You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How To Win Friends And Influence People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: An Indispensible Primer on the Ultimate Form of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sociopath: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spritual Growth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Memory Craft: Improve Your Memory with the Most Powerful Methods in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Starts with Self-Compassion: A Practical Road Map Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Ordinarily Well
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
12 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written by an American psychiatrist, this is a history of the development of antidepressant medications, how they were tested, and how media attention around the author's earlier book "Listening to Prozac" had unintended consequences.The book draws attention to the subtle, and not so subtle, ways that clinical trials of psychiatric medication can be manipulated from design through to publication of results. Reviewed by Amy Rogers.