lh I
On The Bookshelf
The Depression Debate
From Tom Cruise to Brooke Shields — everyone's talking about depression.
Psychiatrist Peter Kramer wrote a book about it.
4SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
sychiatrist and author Dr. Peter
Kramer adapted the tide of his
latest book from an ancient
work by a Jewish historian.
Dr. Kramer, who has written nonfic-
tion and fiction, calls his newest release
Against Depression, a phrase similar to
Against Apion by Flavius Josephus, a
critic of an Egyptian historian who had
spread calumnies about the Jews. Dr.
Kramer's text criticizes notions that
romanticize depression as inspiration to
creativity.
"While our culture has been trained
through public health announcements
to say depression is a disease, nobody
has asked what it means for it to be a
disease and also what it would be like
here and now for us to treat it that
way," says Dr. Kramer, who has
attempted to provide the outlook he
maintains has been missing.
"I wrote Against Depression (Viking;
$25.95) out of a certain passion; and,
in the end, readers can pick up all the
arguments on the other side. It's not a
polemic in the sense that it just bullies
the reader in a certain direction. It
turns issues around and looks at the
same issue from the points of view of
evolutionary biology, cellular biology,
the history of literature and art and
ED
ordinary patient care."
Kramer, a clinical professor of psychi-
atry at Brown University in Rhode
Island and author of the international
bestseller Listening to Prozac, is the host
of the public radio mental health pro-
gram The Infinite Mind, broadcast in
Michigan at 6 a.m. Sundays on
WDET-FM (101.9).
Born to Holocaust survivors in New
York City just after World War II, he
devotes a small part of the book to
revealing his own background as he
came to understand depression. He
recently discussed his professional and
personal interests with the Jewish News.
JN: How do you feel about Tom
Cruise going public with his
Scientology views on mental ill-
ness by stating there's no need
for medication and there's no evidence
of a chemical imbalance as cause?
PK: I think it's comparable to creation-
ists criticizing Darwin and evolution
theories that are really well-backed by
science. Psychiatry nowadays is a highly
scientific practice. Because that is so, it
contains its own criticism.
It's very possible for a critic of psychi-
atry to pick up all the criticisms, and it
seems cruel to pick up 10 percent of
what science says and say that is where
the knowledge is.
If anything good comes out of the
Cruise critique, it's further pressure on
the research community and pharma-
ceutical houses to create independent
research findings and look at long-term
effects of medicine, but I really don't
believe that's what Scientologists want.
I think their arguments suggest that
they just want people to believe what
they believe.
JN: What would you like readers who
suffer with depression to get out of
your book?
PK: I'd like them to identify that they
do suffer with depression and know
that it's important to treat it.
Depression carries its own impedi-
ments to cure because people with
depression think they're bad and
deserve to suffer.
This is a progressive disease, and
there could be harm to the heart,
blood vessels and bones. Scientists
have made enormous progress with
depression over the past 10 years, and
the vast majority of depressions
respond to fairly straightforward treat-
ments.
JN: What about readers who don't suf-
fer with depression?
PK: This is my fourth nonfiction book,
and what I want to do as a writer is
look at the topic from so many view-
points that it resonates and has mean-
Dr. Peter Kramer: "Depression is debilitating,
progressive and relentless in its downhill
course, as tough and worthy an opponent as
any doctor might choose to combat," writes the
physician-author.
ing for people whether or not the topic
is a central interest of theirs.
I use the narrative technique of fic-
tion and a broad range of interests,
from the cell to society, to make the
topic one that surprises and engages
them.
JN: Why do you use a lot of references
to literature and film?
PK: That's where I live. I'm a voracious
reader and moviegoer, and those are the
analogies that come to mind. In some
of my books, skiing analogies played a
role. In this particular case, literature,
storytelling and films have been overly
influenced by our need to accommo-
date depression.
JN: What kind of responses are you
getting from readers?
PK: The main response is what I call,
DEPRESSION on page 50
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