Prozac Diary
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price:
$15.00
Austria Hotels Travel Price:
$10.20
Your Savings: $ 4.80 ( 32% )
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.890092
EAN: 9780140263947
ISBN: 0140263942
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 1999-09-01
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
A dazzling and powerful account of a life profoundly altered by Prozac-- "surely among the best on the long-term effects of the drug" (The New York Times)
In 1988, at age 26, Lauren Slater lived alone in a basement apartment in Cambridge, depressed, suicidal, unemployed. Ten years later, she is a psychologist running her own clinic, an award-winning writer, and happily married. The transformation in her life was brought about by Prozac. Prozac Diary is Lauren Slater's incisive account of a life restored to productivity, creativity, and love. When she wakes up one morning and finds that her demons no longer have a hold on her, Slater struggles with the strange state of being well after a lifetime of craziness. Yet this is no hymn to a miracle pharmaceutical. It is a frankly ambivalent quest for the truth of self behind an ongoing reliance on a drug. Slater also addresses Prozac's notorious "poop-out" effect and its devastating attack on her libido. This is the first memoir to reflect on long-term Prozac use, and reviewers agree that no one has written about Prozac with such beauty, honesty, and insight.
* 12 million Americans take Prozac regularly
* Prozac Diary appeared on the Boston Globe and Independent bestseller lists
* Penguin Readers Guide Bound into Every Book
"Powerful. . . . The chemistry of Prozac Diary is beautiful." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brief Diary
Comment: This book was just okay. It was somewhat interesting to read about her experiences with Prozac, but she did a lot of whining about the things that it took away from her, rather than focusing on the fact that it gave her her life back. Her writing is also tangential when she tries to become poetic. Something seemed to be missing. The book felt incomplete or rushed. It is a quick, easy read, but I can't say that I would recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Honest, weird, worth reading....
Comment: Dr. Lauren Slater woke up one day to discover that Prozac had eliminated one of her most closely held realities - Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This book is a journal of her experiences for the ten years that would follow.
Slater documents her fear of losing that comfortable reality, her ability to write creatively, her disciplined reading and eating habits, her inhibitions and her familiar internal voices. Having survived multiple hospitalizations for anorexia and other medical interpretations of her behavior, Slater agrees to begin therapy with Prozac during the drug's infancy. Her physician, overtly wooed by the pharmaceutical's manufacturer, supplies an ever-increasing dose of the wonder drug without mentioning its side effects and its temporary efficacy. While the author refuses to become the Prozac poster-child, she does experience a significant amount of success with the drug and is forthright about her satisfaction as well as her fears.
Lauren Slater is inspirational on many levels. Not only does she treat the status of her psycho-emotional health as something to be embraced as worthy, she regards this unique piece of her identity as something normal for her in this place and time. Slater acknowledges the need for caution when it comes to safety and well-being without negating the value that an alternate psychological reality can present. In addition to her open-minded views on psychic illness, Slater channeled her experiences into motivation and earned her PhD in psychology. She now sees patients of her own and writes professionally regarding subjects in her field.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Prozac Addiction?
Comment: Lauren Slater was prescribed Prozac in 1988 when the pharmaceutical first came out. She recalls having an almost immediate and "blissed out" feeling. Slater says that Prozac made her "high" and goes on and on about it obsessively as she describes her reaction to Prozac as, "the single most stunning experience of my life." This is rather melodramatic. I have tried Prozac and I have been depressed throughout my life. Taking a pharmacetical like Prozac does not make a person "high."
I have a real problem with the way Slater portrays Prozac as her "drug." She pontificates as if taking an anti-deppressant for DEPPRESSION is shameful, secretive. Slater becomes an intern at a half-way house for "boozers" and is informed that staff member's sign waivers allowing the administration to do random urine screens. Athough Slater does not use any illegal drugs, she panics at the thought of "being revealed." Slater compares herself to the addicts who live at the half-way house. Describing a client, she says "he stared straight at me, one junkie to another..."
It insulting to those of us who have struggled with addiction to have Slater describe herself as a "junkie" because she is over dramatizing her experience with Prozac. It was persribed to her for the treatment of a disease and she was NOT abusing the medication.
(I am in recovery and have been clean for 3 years). Slater later also considers herself "drug-dependent" and tries to convince the reader of her claim with her interpretation of what The DSM IV calls addiction. I don't buy it, and I don't think anyone who has struggled with drug or alcohol addiction will either. Maybe a reader without a history of addiction and/or depression won't notice that Slater is a phoney and an alarmist. Nobody is buying the "addicted to Prozac" crap.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspirational story
Comment: This book follows the story of learning, recovering, and adjusting of a woman, confused
and feeling alone. Chronicling a young woman's experiences of the late 80's, being one
of the first to take Prozac, it focuses on the changes and mixed emotions associated with
taking the new drug. Reality and psychology blend together to form an inspirational story
for those that can relate. Recommended age 16 and up due to sexual content, adult
themes, and language.
Based on a true, biographical story, the story behind the author (Slater) is very intriguing.
Being a somewhat difficult read, following the ups and downs, the story details the life of
a depressed, suicidal-prone young woman trying to survive in society. Setting up the
story, it details doctor's visits, past attempts to regain a grasp on her life, and her
prescribing doctor. Upon actually being prescribed Prozac, the story details the tough
decision and thought process about being one of the first to take the new psychotropic
drug. Once making a decision to proceed with the medical treatment, a focus is paid to
the effects and results. Although changes are felt within the author's attitude and outlook
on life within very few days, questions are provoked about whether these changes can
appear in such a short amount of time. A diary-like feel is given to the story when the
author accounts her days on the drug. In going from depressed to a never before
experienced happiness, the question of truth behind these feelings is proposed. 888 Over
the course of her first few weeks on Prozac, Slater personally tests her true happiness and
ultimate truth behind this happiness. Throughout her treatment period, the author makes
large progression toward her final goal of happiness, seeking help along the way and
receiving it where hands extend. Struggle and strength are themes throughout the
chronicle, displaying conflicts associated with taking a somewhat controversial and
amateur market drug of the time. Now a large name drug, the unknowns behind it in it's
early stages are marked within this diary of a young woman pleading for her happiness-
something she has never truly known.
Customer Rating:
Summary: effective, honest, scary
Comment: well written. scary details about mental illness. both scary w/ respect to what i might see in myself and what exceeds greatly in a dystopic fashion what i see in myself. is a testament to how well prozac can work, and in that fashion, this memoir is quite effective and honest, although some may call it "over salted" (as Hamlet didn't want his plays to be like over salted dishes.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Austria Hotels Travel Books
Austria Hotels Travel DVD
Austria Hotels Travel Softwares
Austria Hotels Travel Magazines
Austria Related Sites
Austria Posters
Austria Art Prints
Austria Travel 2008 Calendars
2008 Monthly Calendars
Austria Hotels Travel Special Resources
Austria Arts
Austria Entertainment
Austria Business
Austria Culture
Austria Education
Austria Government
Austria Health
Austria Map
Sports & Recreation
Travel & Tourism
Austria Travel Destinations
Vienna, Austria
Wels, Austria
Rennweg, Austria
Salzburg, Austria
Linz, Austria
Ossiach, Austria
Innsbruck, Austria
Portschach, Austria
Graz, Austria
Lienz, Austria
Anthering, Austria
Bregenz, Austria
Imst, Austria
Kitzbuehel, Austria
Rankweil, Austria
St. Anton, Austria
Stockerau, Austria
Telfes, Austria
Kustein, Austria
Zurs am Arlberg
Bad Gastein, Austria
Eisenstadt, Austria
Wien, Austria
|
Austria Hotels Travel
Maintained by: Marketer Solutions | Link Building
