February 19, 1999

Peter Kramer, M.D., the author of the best-selling book Listening to Prozac, will be the featured speaker at the APA Auxiliary's luncheon during APA's 1999 annual meeting.

The luncheon will be held Tuesday, May 18, at 11 a.m. at the Washington Monarch, formerly the ANA Hotel, at 2401 M Street, N.W.

Listening to Prozac made Kramer arguably the best-known psychiatrist in America after the book's publication in 1993. He wrote about a new class of antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and the effects those drugs have on personality. Prozac, he noted, has a wide variety of effects on those who take it-feelings of enhanced self-worth and greater confidence and increased willingness to take risks. While it benefits the mentally ill, the drug also causes dramatic personality changes in people who are not or are only mildly depressed. Finding such changes disconcerting, Kramer questioned whether a person's "real self" was the medicated or unmedicated version.

Critics of his book thought he was advocating psychopharmacology over psychotherapy, which he was not. Harold Pincus, M.D., director of APA's Office of Research, told Psychiatric News, "Far from being anti-psychotherapy, Peter is one of the most talented and erudite students, teachers, and practitioners of psychotherapy."

Other critics charged that he downplayed the drug's side effects. He responded to his critics in the afterword to the 1997 edition of the book.

A review of the book in the New York Observer called Listening to Prozac, "A fascinating, well-crafted. . . contribution to our understanding of personality."

Kramer's latest book is Should You Leave, which was published in paperback last month by Penquin USA. Kramer presents various perspectives of modern theory regarding relationships so that readers can begin to evaluate their own.

The book begins with a simple statement: "All you want is a simple piece of advice." With that irresistible hook, Kramer leads readers into a world where there are no pat answers about relationships: each one raises its own set of unique questions, answerable only by the parties in that relationship. Kramer challenges readers to consider the meaning and nuances of attachment through the filter of such people as Sigmund Freud, Harry Stack Sullivan, and even Ann Landers. This is an antidote to glib self-help books, written in masterful prose and gentle reflection woven around fictional characters and cases.

"Kramer has a talent for developing fascinating characters and engaging cases and for translating complex schools of clinical thought into language that a broad audience can understand," wrote the New York Times Book Review about Should You Leave?

"Marriage is a poor arena for restrictive fixed agreements," Kramer writes in the chapter "The Art of the Deal." "After a time, the marriage must be sustained by whatever assets-call them trust or entitlement or even inertia-have accrued. The contract never to have a child, while common and on its face reasonable, misunderstands what marriage is. People change, and the overall marriage agreement is for husband and wife to work together as they change. The unwilling father and the pregnant wife must meet here and now to the best of their abilities."

The auxiliary luncheon is just one of numerous events the group has scheduled for the annual meeting. A complete schedule appears in the box at right.

Tickets for the luncheon are $70 each if purchased before April 23. After that date, the cost is $75. To obtain tickets, call Agner Foos at (818) 97 7156.