Largely today, the treatment of depression in the United States has become synonymous with taking a pill in order to make all of your troubles go away. As such, the prescribing of anti-depressant medications to patients with depression and other psychiatric disorders by doctors has become a priority to the pharmaceutical industry. Treating depression like one would with a headache has become incredibly lucrative to doctors, patients, and pharmaceutical companies. Evident through the robust advertisement campaigns for anti-depressant medications, such as Abilify, Zoloft, and Cymbalta, the supply is determined to reach out to its demand. The categorization of depression as a bodily illness, rather than an emotional one, is seemingly lining the
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In Amy Brodkey’s article ‘The Role of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Teaching Psychopharmacology’, she outlines the influence that drug companies have had on psychiatry, with attention to industry-sponsored events, lectures, and research. A medical doctor herself, Brodkey discusses the blurred boundaries between ‘the industry’ and ‘the profession’ that she has witnessed. She discusses how the academic landscape within psychopharmacology has become tainted by the pharmaceutical industry with free, branded promotional items (such as pens, cups, mugs, notepads, clocks, et cetera), lectures, drug samples, workshops, and industry-sponsored research (Brodkey 2005: 222). The conflation between education and promotion is proving to be problematic, especially as psychopharmacological research becomes more and more funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Brodkey discusses the many ways through which pharmaceutical companies are using money, power, and influence in order to sway research outcomes; this includes the modification of research design to favor the products of the companies funding said research, the exclusion of negative outcomes in final research results, funding and use of for-profit research companies to conduct research, and other tactics to suppress negative research results regarding their products (Brodkey 2005: 224). …show more content…
In itself, it is sort of a consequence to civilization. In his article ‘There’s Nothing Deep About Depression’, Peter Kramer discusses the significance of cultural conscience regarding depression and mental illness, and how culture breeds perception about the illness. Kramer highlights Hamlet as an example of someone experiencing melancholia, which is largely how we define depression as a disorder. Kramer is somewhat critical of psychopharmacology, as he understands it to be something that “deprives us of our condition”. However, he understands the value of medication, citing Van Gogh as an example of someone in great pain who did not have the access to treatment, and ultimately committed suicide due to his disarray. Kramer poses the ethical and moral question of whether we should be able to use psychopharmacology to modify our personalities, experiences, and identities. Likewise, he also questions whether if our current understanding of depression is actually a disease, or if it is a misunderstanding of the unpalatable aspects of the human condition. In his book Listening to Prozac, Kramer discusses the cosmetic psychopharmacology, and his experiment where he put non-depressed individuals on Prozac to see how it would affect their lives. In theory, Prozac would improve their lives, and the results did match up to this. Kramer finds it alarming how well the patients responded to Prozac, and
In Amy Brodkey’s article ‘The Role of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Teaching Psychopharmacology’, she outlines the influence that drug companies have had on psychiatry, with attention to industry-sponsored events, lectures, and research. A medical doctor herself, Brodkey discusses the blurred boundaries between ‘the industry’ and ‘the profession’ that she has witnessed. She discusses how the academic landscape within psychopharmacology has become tainted by the pharmaceutical industry with free, branded promotional items (such as pens, cups, mugs, notepads, clocks, et cetera), lectures, drug samples, workshops, and industry-sponsored research (Brodkey 2005: 222). The conflation between education and promotion is proving to be problematic, especially as psychopharmacological research becomes more and more funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Brodkey discusses the many ways through which pharmaceutical companies are using money, power, and influence in order to sway research outcomes; this includes the modification of research design to favor the products of the companies funding said research, the exclusion of negative outcomes in final research results, funding and use of for-profit research companies to conduct research, and other tactics to suppress negative research results regarding their products (Brodkey 2005: 224). …show more content…
In itself, it is sort of a consequence to civilization. In his article ‘There’s Nothing Deep About Depression’, Peter Kramer discusses the significance of cultural conscience regarding depression and mental illness, and how culture breeds perception about the illness. Kramer highlights Hamlet as an example of someone experiencing melancholia, which is largely how we define depression as a disorder. Kramer is somewhat critical of psychopharmacology, as he understands it to be something that “deprives us of our condition”. However, he understands the value of medication, citing Van Gogh as an example of someone in great pain who did not have the access to treatment, and ultimately committed suicide due to his disarray. Kramer poses the ethical and moral question of whether we should be able to use psychopharmacology to modify our personalities, experiences, and identities. Likewise, he also questions whether if our current understanding of depression is actually a disease, or if it is a misunderstanding of the unpalatable aspects of the human condition. In his book Listening to Prozac, Kramer discusses the cosmetic psychopharmacology, and his experiment where he put non-depressed individuals on Prozac to see how it would affect their lives. In theory, Prozac would improve their lives, and the results did match up to this. Kramer finds it alarming how well the patients responded to Prozac, and